Huge numbers of people in southern Unity State are living in ‘life-threatening’ conditions eating water lilies and drinking swamp water, too afraid to leave the bush, according to the aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Leer town, which was burnt during an army offensive with JEM in late January, is still largely empty, with residents living in the bush or outlying villages and refusing to return, while the government remains in control of the town.

According to UN estimates, more than 180,000 people in the state are displaced, about a third of the population, with the heaviest impact in the west and south of the state and around Bentiu.

Leer hospital has been totally looted and ransacked, says Sarah Maynard, MSF Project manager. The aid group sent an assessment team back to the town to see what had happened to the hospital they built 25 years ago.

At a press conference on Wednesday, she said that 240 local staff fled Leer on 28 January. Since then the organization has been able to speak “sporadically by phone” with some of them while about two-thirds they haven’t managed to have contact.

“We’re extremely worried about them and the unknown thousands who are living in horrible conditions in the bush. The conditions for the displaced who fled from Leer are dire, people are facing a life-threatening lack of access to food, to water, shelter and medical care,” said Maynard.  

“They’re drinking water from dirty rivers, they’re eating water lilies, and they tell us that they are too scared to move around during the day for fear of insecurity. At the moment they can’t come out of the bush for fear of attack,” she said, adding that MSF has not yet returned to work in the town either.

Maynard said the MSF staff “are doing an amazing job,” still trying to care for dozens of severely ill patients that they brought with them from the hospital, and care for other displaced people who seek out the MSF team in the bush.

But she said they are struggling to treat them with dwindling supplies. For instance, surgical patients evacuated from Leer can no longer have their wound dressings changed because the workers ran out of dressings. This would increase the chances of infection and possibly require amputations.

‘Leer secure’

The South Sudanese government, which recaptured parts of southern Unity State in late January and early February, says that they have reestablished order in Leer and want people to return to the town.

Stephen Dong, Commisioner of Leer County, speaking last weekend on South Sudan Television during a visit by the National Crisis Management Committee to the area said, “The citizens should come back but they are fearing, because of propaganda they are making that is not true, that there are forces of Tang Ginye will come on the Mayendit road and attack Leer.”

For his part, James Ruaei Gai, who identified himself as ‘war commissioner of Mayendit County,’ said, “SPLA is controlling the whole area of the south of the state, which is a very good thing.”

“You know, before our arrival we found this whole area destroyed. And SPLA managed to control the area. And the citizens are still staying in the county and we’re telling them to come back,” he added.

Brig Gen. Deng Mayiik the SPLA commander in Leer area, likewise blamed the destruction on “rebels led by Kong Chol,” calling on citizens to return home.

‘Hospital destroyed, trust destroyed’

MSF Project Manager Sarah Maynard described Leer’s destroyed hospital as “a busy place,” explaining “mothers gave birth safely, countless people had surgery there, malnourished children were treated, thousands were vaccinated, and since December 15 when the fighting erupted in South Sudan we were even busier.”

Since the start of fighting in Unity State in December, MSF completed about 170 surgeries in Leer Hospital, and cared for the sick who fled from areas farther north.

Now the “operating theatre is destroyed, the emergency room gutted by fire, and the tent where food was stored including therapeutic food for malnourished children.”

All of the medical supplies in Leer were looted and “surgical instruments destroyed, scattered throughout the grounds of the hospital, and not a single bed remains inside the hospital,” said the medical official.

“We don’t know if we’re going to go back to Leer yet, we haven’t taken that decision. If we do it will take an enormous amount of resources to rebuild, and the other thing that needs to be rebuilt is the trust for patients, for staff, for MSF that the hospital can be a safe place to receive medical care,” she concluded.

Photo: Mayendit County War Commissioner James Ruaei Gai

Related:

Key humanitarian updates: Food given to only 16% of Unity IDPs (25 Feb.)

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