The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced the closure of its office in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria State due to a shortage of funds.
Speaking during a farewell gathering to mark the closure of their office in Torit town on Saturday, the head of the UNICEF field office, Mr Bernard Makelele Ofuho, said the office had been closed, but the provision of similar programs will continue through implementing partners.
UNICEF has supported programs including WASH, immunization, malnutrition, and emergency health response, among others.
“Closure of the office does not mean all the programs will cease. And one of the reasons we are closing, I think in 2019, 2020, and 2021 the entire globe experienced one of the most unprecedented outbreaks is Covid-19, and you know this affected the countries that used to provide support, the donor countries,” he said.
Mr Makelele urged the South Sudan government to provide a favourable environment for humanitarian agencies to continue delivering services to needy people.
“There must be security for the humanitarian staff. Last year one of our partners, CORDAID, lost a staff member, and this year just a few weeks ago, we also lost staff in Ikotos and some few days back, there were shootings in a hospital in Imehejek. So there are a lot of issues affecting us as humanitarian agencies, and these are things that for us to deliver services, we must be assured of our safety,” he said.
For her part, Deputy Governor Mary Alphonse Lodira acknowledged the sacrifices made by aid workers in the state, saying the state is still mourning the aid workers who were killed recently.
“We are taking it seriously that this time round, I know we had been criticized. We always say we will investigate, and we come up with endless investigations. I want to assure all humanitarian workers that security is our top priority,” Mary said.
On World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, Sara Beysolow Nyanti, called for joint action to address the aid crisis in the country and end attacks against civilians and humanitarian workers.
Violence against aid workers
South Sudan continues to be the most violent context for aid workers, followed by Afghanistan and Syria.
Since the beginning of the year, five humanitarian workers have been killed in the line of duty.
Across the country, aid workers – mostly national humanitarian workers – are affected by the impact of armed violence, bureaucratic impediments, and targeted violence.
From 1 January to 30 July, 232 incidents related to humanitarian access constraints were reported, with the highest being in Jonglei and Central Equatoria states, which account for 40 per cent of all reported incidents.