Medical charity Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) has called for scaling up humanitarian response to support returnees arriving in poor health in Malakal town of Upper Nile state.
“With the rainy season, we can face a big outbreak of malaria if nothing is done in terms of proper shelter and mosquito nets distribution, on top of that, there is risk of a cholera outbreak in such circumstances, it could be catastrophic,” said Nuru Katikomu, MSF Emergency Field Coordinator in Bulukat transit center in Malakal.
Akuch Deng, who fled conflict in Sudan with her two children, said returnees are given only 14 U.S dollars per person to buy food that cannot last a week.
She said most returnees end up waiting in the transit center for several weeks without additional assistance for food and supplies to survive.
“We need shelter, and we also need good living conditions. We do not have food here. We do not have soap. We also need mosquito nets, the small cash they give here is not enough in the market,” said Deng.
Luz Linares, the MSF Head of Mission in South Sudan, said people are without sufficient food, shelter or healthcare, adding that out of the total 245,000 people who have entered South Sudan to seek refuge since April, about 198,000 have crossed through Renk.
“There must be an immediate scale up of medical and humanitarian response by humanitarian groups for people arriving from Sudan, from the time of entry into South Sudan, until their relocation to the areas of their choice,” said Linares.
