4 September 2015 - To improve living conditions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) living at the UNMISS protection-of-civilians (PoC) site in the Upper Nile State capital Malakal, humanitarian partners recently started relocating them to new sites.

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and other partners had already moved more than 7,000 newly arrived IDPs to a new site, said an official from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),

“DRC has been able to relocate 7,200 new arrivals out of 15,000 that came to the PoC site since the beginning of July,” said Kenneth Baato Rogers, head of the OCHA in the state.

He noted that the influx of the IDPs had reduced with only a few coming from Panyikango County due to the lack of food and other supplies in the area.

“IDPs (continue to come) in but in small numbers, mainly from Panyikango following the last influx in mid-August,” said Mr. Rogers. “The reason that we continue to receive them has to do with (their lack of) access to food.”

He explained that when the influx began, humanitarian partners had identified two locations to accommodate new arrivals and started to pitch tents there.

“Contingency site one has 100 communal shelters (which) were completed on 2 September (and) we were able to accommodate 7,200 individuals,” he said.

He added that work was ongoing on the second contingency site and that more than 100 communal shelters would be completed by mid-October to accommodate the remaining IDPs.

In addition, humanitarian partners were working to improve the services delivery to IDPs who have been relocated to the new site.

“The WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) cluster has managed to improve the delivery of water from nine litres per person a day to 12 litres per person a day,” said Mr. Rogers. “There is ongoing vaccination to target 15,000 new arrivals against cholera, food distribution was completed last week and all the new arrivals were able to receive food for 20 days.”

The health cluster was also making efforts to help prevent malaria infections, a key challenge at the protection site, and had begun distributing 3,060 mosquito nets, he added.