MSF treats more than 100 wounded in Upper Nile

16 Jan 2014

MSF treats more than 100 wounded in Upper Nile

15 January 2014 - During recent fighting in Upper Nile State, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) treated 116 people with gunshot wounds in Malakal and Nasir, the organization said in a statement today.

“The fighting in Malakal in the past few days has limited our ability to reach displaced people in the places where they are gathering, and is preventing people from receiving the medical and humanitarian assistance they desperately need,” said Raphael Gorgeu, MSF’s head of mission in South Sudan.

She said MSF was also concerned about the living conditions of hundreds of thousands of displaced people across the country, “most of whom fled their homes with nothing and have little food, water or access to healthcare”.

The medical needs of the displaced were putting existing health facilities under increasing pressure, with some clinics and hospitals already overwhelmed, the statement said. MSF was reinforcing its emergency teams to respond to people’s increasing health and humanitarian needs.

In recent weeks, MSF emergency teams have stepped up their support to displaced people in Awerial, Lakes state, and in the capital, Juba.

MSF teams had also recently started supporting displaced people fleeing from Bentiu towards Leer, in Unity state; in Nasir and Malakal, Upper Nile state; in Lankien, Jonglei state; and in Nimule, Eastern Equatoria state on the Ugandan border.

Outside the country MSF teams were supporting the Ugandan and Kenyan Ministries of Health with healthcare and clean water for refugees, while a team was carrying out an assessment in Ethiopia, the statement said.

MSF called on all parties to this conflict to respect the integrity of medical facilities, permit aid organizations to access affected communities, and allow patients to receive medical treatment irrespective of their origin or ethnicity.