Health, protection risks at overcrowded UN bases in South Sudan
JUBA, 29 April 2014 (IRIN) - Since fighting broke out across nearly half of
South Sudan in mid-December, at least 75,000 people have fled to UN
compounds, desperate for security and shelter. More than four months later,
as battles between government troops and forces loyal to former
vice-president Riek Machar continue, the displaced are still arriving at the
UN gates.
As many as 20,000 people streamed into the base in the Unity State capital,
Bentiu, this month after opposition forces allegedly carried out ethnically
targeted killings after taking control of the town.
“So many people are saying there is nowhere else for them to go,” Toby
Lanzer, the UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, told IRIN after a
recent trip to Bentiu. The opportunity to shelter in the camps is “giving
civilians who are just stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, a sense
of hope.”
But the fear is they may have exchanged the dangers of the frontline for new
risks: The start of the rainy season could speed disease outbreaks within
the congested camps, while a civilian attack on one UN compound this month
left dozens of people dead and signalled that the bases cannot necessarily
shield people from the fighting they moved there to escape.
Aid agencies have lashed out at the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS),
accusing its leaders of not working fast enough to improve conditions in
existing camps or build new ones, even as UNMISS officials promise new sites
will finally be ready next month. At the same time, some UNMISS officials
are calling for the military reinforcements the UN Security Council
authorized in December so they can simply secure the sites they already
have.
The safety of the UN camps – now known as protection of civilians (POC)
sites - was called into question in the early days of the fighting when
armed youth stormed the base in Akobo, in eastern South Sudan, on 19
December. They killed two Indian peacekeepers and at least 20 civilians.
In the days after the Akobo attack, the Security Council unanimously
approved an increase in the number of UNMISS peacekeepers from 7,000 to
12,500. So far, about 650 of the promised peacekeepers have arrived or are
on the way, according to acting UNMISS spokesperson Joe Contreras.
Despite the slow deployment, there were no major security incidents at the
camps for nearly four months, though aid workers reported some bases had
been caught in the crossfire of some battles, and residents had been hit by
stray bullets. Then, on 17 April, a group of youth armed with
rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons breached the Bor compound.
Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, has changed hands four times since the
fighting started. While tens of thousands of people crossed the Nile to
escape the area completely, 5,000 are still holed up at the UNMISS base.
After the rebels emerged from days of fighting with control of Bentiu on 16
April, some of the Bor camp residents held noisy celebrations, angering
local youth loyal to President Salva Kiir’s government. They marched on the
compound - allegedly to deliver a petition to UNMISS. Instead, gunfire
erupted and the youth managed to enter the base. Nearly 60 people were
killed before peacekeepers were able to drive them out.
William Koang, who has been living in the Bor base since December, said the
youth are still moving around the outside the camp and “the thing we’re
fearing is another attack.”
New level of brutality?
The assault on the Bor POC site points to a new level of brutality in South
Sudan’s conflict, especially in the wake of the Bentiu massacre. The UN has
accused rebel fighters of systematically killing people sheltering at a
mosque, church and hospital based on their ethnic origins. In an echo of the
Rwandan genocide, they allegedly used a local FM station to incite the
population, including “calling on men from one community to commit vengeful
sexual violence against women from another community,” according to the UN
report on the killings. The opposition has denied all of the charges, but
that did not stop people from fleeing to the UNMISS base.
In the aftermath of the two incidents, acting UNMISS Unity State Coordinator
Mary Cummins issued a press statement calling for a promised battalion of
Ghanian soldiers to arrive “soon” and help protect the influx of people into
the Bentiu camp. Days later Hervé Ladsous, the UN peacekeeping chief, called
the violence in Bor “an extremely dangerous precedent” that “cannot happen
again”. Still, no date has been set for the arrival of the nearly 5,000
additional peacekeepers.
Filthy floodwater
Not all of the dangers are waiting outside the POC sites. Nyabuok Dup is one
of the more than 20,000 people crowded into the Tomping camp, in the shadow
of Juba’s airport. The UN has reported that the space available for each
person is less than a tenth of what is recommended by minimum humanitarian
standards. When it rains, dirty streams of water flood the makeshift home
she has built from plastic sheets and jagged pieces of plywood.
“When the rain comes, immediately houses fall down,” she told IRIN. Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF), which is running both in-patient and outpatient
clinics at the compound, reported that during the first heavy rainfall after
the camp was established, 150 latrines collapsed, “mixing [effluent] with
floodwater”. Every time it rains, Dup has to hold her two infant children to
prevent them from drowning in the filthy floodwater.
Earlier this month, MSF accused UNMISS of a “shocking display of
indifference” for “refus[ing] to improve living conditions” for people like
Dup at the POC site. Stefan Liljegren, MSF’s field coordinator, told IRIN
already more than half of the 200 patients they treat per day are suffering
from diarrhoeal diseases, respiratory infections and skin diseases that are
either caused or exacerbated by the water that courses through the camps.
And as the months-long rainy season continues, it raises the risk of an
outbreak of cholera, measles or some other infectious disease.
(In response, Toby Lanzer, the Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan,
said, “I think that what [MSF] said was said in a spirit of trying to make
sure that before the rains really set in for the next few months, that the
conditions of people are as good as they can be. I think that was MSF's main
message and we share that message.")
“People here still have a major problem and a big, big, big health risk,”
Liljegren said. “They need a lot of attention to prevent an outbreak here.”
“Death traps” warning
Overcrowding is also in evidence at the UN base in Upper Nile State’s
capital, Malakal. It has 18,000 people. Oxfam spokesperson Grace Cahill said
the Malakal population is particularly vulnerable, with at least half of the
families there headed by women. “Everything suggests that these people are
too afraid to leave the POC and that they’re really the poorest of the
poor,” she said.
While acknowledging that the bases “weren’t ever prepared to be places where
people could live”, Cahill said unless peace returns to South Sudan soon,
tens of thousands of people are likely to remain at the camps indefinitely,
which means UNMISS needs to work faster to make them habitable. Even UNMISS
head Hilde Johnson has acknowledged Malakal and Tomping are at “imminent
risk of turning into death traps.”
Work is under way in both Juba and Malakal on new sites to take the people
living in the most dangerous areas of the camp. International Organization
for Migration head of operations John McCue said in both cases they should
be able to start moving people by the end of May - ahead of the heaviest
rains - at the very latest. About 2,000 people in Tomping can be moved even
sooner to land that was recently opened within the UNMISS base, while teams
work on installing new latrines in the current camp.
The new camps come more than a month behind earlier deadlines UNMISS had
set, but McCue pointed to a host of logistical difficulties in getting them
built - including gaining access to land to build the sites and to the
peacekeepers necessary to secure it. Officials must also deal with rapidly
shifting events on the ground, where an outbreak of fighting can delay
attempts to transport heavy equipment.
And even as teams build fences and dig latrines for the new sites in Juba
and Malakal, McCue warned that the international community will probably now
need to divert attention and resources to Bentiu. Until two weeks ago,
“everything was relatively OK,” he said. But that changed quickly when
thousands of people decided that despite the threats from both within and
without, the UN base was still their best chance for safety.
Received on Tue Apr 29 2014 - 17:32:23 EDT