AKOBO, JONGLEI – A sea of women and children fill the compound of the dilapidated Akobo Hospital, desperately waiting for medical attention.
More than two dozen aid workers from different United Nations agencies and partners register the women and direct them to appropriate areas to receive medical attention or nutrition supplies for their malnourished children.
“We’ve been here for five days, and today we’ve treated more than 800 children for malnutrition,” says Abdi Razak, a UNICEF staff member who is helping to provide them with high-energy food and nutritional supplies.
Outside the hospital, peacekeepers from India, serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, provide a protective perimeter to ensure that the humanitarians can safely treat the most vulnerable and distribute desperately needed supplies.
Since the fighting ended in Akobo, tens of thousands of residents who previously fled the area are gradually returning home to a fragile peace.
But their lives have been upended by the destruction wrought here. Homes have been destroyed, health facilities looted and damaged, and there is an urgent need for medical workers and supplies.
About three kilometres away, in an open field, another batch of UNMISS peacekeepers maintain a vigilant watch as an airplane circles overhead, the sound of its engines piercing the afternoon stillness. A radio crackles and, minutes later, the same plane swoops lower, releasing a precious barrage of grain bags that sail through the air and land safely on the soft soil. It conducts the same exercise of dropping emergency food supplies three times.
At the nearby airfield, a heavy-lift helicopter from WFP unloads a large consignment of high-energy biscuits. On the outer perimeter of the drop zone, a large assembly of men, women and children waits for the precious food.
“We are providing protection and working closely with 37 humanitarian agencies and partners to ensure that supplies are kept safe until they can be handed over to the intended beneficiaries,” says Lieutenant Colonel, SP Mishra, commander of the Indian Battalion in Akobo.
Back at the hospital, a young woman needs urgent medical care. She is bleeding severely, and the health workers cannot stanch the flow.
An UNMISS team races back to base to fetch the only doctor in the UN camp. He is able to stop the bleeding, but they do not have the right equipment to further treat her. She is identified as a priority case and flown out within 24 hours on a UNMISS helicopter to a hospital in Malakal.
“It is heartening for us to be able to support so many humanitarian interventions here,” explains Head of the UNMISS Bor Field Office, Geetha Pious.
“Today, I met with women who told me that they sometimes have to eat grass and leaves to survive. They are so relieved to finally receive food aid and to be protected by our peacekeepers so they can begin rebuilding their lives.”
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By Robin Giri
