MSF's Andre Heller speaks on the Denver-based public radio program Colorado Matters about his work with tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Yida camp, South Sudan.
Armed conflict is continuing in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and approximately 200,000 refugees have fled to camps in South Sudan since 2011. These refugees face many health problems including malnutrition and respiratory tract infections, according to MSF's Silvia de Weerdt.
MSF has been assisting refugees in South Sudan since November 2011, running field hospitals and providing supplies of clean drinking water and oral rehydration fluids.
When fighting erupted in Lekwongole, MSF clinical officer David Bude fled along with the rest of the population and used his medical skills to save lives in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
Ongoing violence in Jonglei state has had a devastating impact on tens of thousands of people, with many forcibly displaced and further cut off from health care due to the destruction of medical facilities
Deane Marchbein, president of Doctors Without Borders, spoke about responding to crises in South Sudan, Libya and Haiti on the public radio program "Conversations with Allan Wolper."
Kassia Queen, MSF South Sudan head of mission, spoke about the country's refugee crisis on "Africa Today" on KPFA (Berkeley Pacifica Radio affiliate). The interview starts at the 30:50 mark.
In this interview, André Heller, MSF head of mission in South Sudan, discusses MSF's activities in Yida camp, where MSF has reduced the mortality rate of refugees fleeing conflict and food insecurity in Sudan.
BBC reports from the refugee camps in South Sudan's Maban County, where more than 100,000 Sudanese men, women, and children are seeking sanctuary after fleeing their homeland.
Sudanese refugees living in appalling conditions in camps in South Sudan are falling ill and dying at rates alarmingly above accepted international standards for emergencies.
Soaked by rain yet short on clean water, refugees who have fled from Sudan to South Sudan are dying from diarrhea and other preventable diseases at devastating rates, aid agencies said as they made anguished pleas for more help.
Nine children are dying every day from preventable illnesses like diarrhea in an overflowing refugee camp in South Sudan, aid officials said Friday, victims of another internal conflict between Sudan’s Arab-dominated central government and its marginalized people in the hinterland.
Sheik Osman is 55 years old, a father of seven and a leader of 500 families from his village, Kwaimol. He fled Kwaimol in September, along with 18 of the families in his group. They have been living in Jamam camp since December.
Vanessa Cramond, medical coordinator for MSF in South Sudan's Maban County, describes the dire situation of some 35,000 refugees who have crossed the border from Sudan.
More than 100,000 people who have fled violence in Sudan’s Blue Nile State are struggling to survive in an inhospitable stretch of land in South Sudan.
"All these people in the camps are normal people who had normal lives. They’re not rich people, but they had houses and clothes, and then one day, they had to pack their things, leave their lives behind and start to walk. For weeks on end."
These first-hand accounts describe the situation for tens of thousands of refugees who fled fighting in Sudan and now face a full-blown humanitarian crisis as they seek refuge in already-overcrowded camps in South Sudan.
Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing fighting in Sudan are facing a full-blown humanitarian crisis as they seek refuge in already-overcrowded camps in South Sudan.
In this Voices from the Field update, MSF medical team leader Erna Rijnierse describes the dire situation of 30,000 newly arrived refugees in South Sudan.
Tens of thousands of refugees who have fled fighting in Sudan to seek safety in neighboring South Sudan are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
Elizabeth Ramlow, a midwife from Massachusetts, was seven months into a nine-month assignment with MSF in Luwingu, Zambia, when visa problems cut her time there short. Rather than returning home, however, she went to work in South Sudan’s Doro refugee camp in Maban, where an MSF emergency team had set up a clinic to care for tens of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict just over the border in Sudan.
Dr. Ana Maria Guzman, a physician and clinical researcher from Maryland, recently returned from six months overseeing medical activities at MSF’s clinic in the town of Gogrial, in South Sudan’s Warrap State. Below, she talks about her time in Gogrial, where MSF has worked since 2009 as the sole organization serving the medical needs of nearly a quarter of a million people in the area.
Tensions and hostilities continue unabated between South Sudan and its northern neighbor, Sudan, and MSF is therefore scaling up its emergency response.
One of the key issues that have yet to be resolved in the Iowa legislature this session is education reform. The House and Senate have passed dueling plans and the Governor says the Senate’s version is “watered down.” Join host Ben Kieffer as he’s joined by Governor Terry Branstad. We’ll ask him about education reform and about the debate over finely textured lean beef – or what critics are calling “pink slime.” Later, Ben talks with Elizabeth Wentzel, who after raising five children decided to chase her life-long dream to travel to a far away land to work and support others less fortunate. The Pilot Mound native is on a nine month assignment in the newly independent nation of South Sudan working as a nurse for Doctors Without Borders.
After helping to successfully fight an outbreak of the deadly disease kala azar, MSF has handed over its project in Malakal to local health authorities.
Kirrily de Polnay, an MSF doctor working in South Sudan's Jamam refugee camps talks about the situation, the patients, and the nature of working in fast evolving emergency.
Driven by fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile State, tens of thousands of refugees now in camps across the border in South Sudan need assistance before the looming rainy season renders the area impassable.
MSF is providing medical assistance to refugees who left Sudan and have been living in two towns in South Sudan since the country gained independence last July.
Testimonies given by people who were injured or whose family members were injured, killed, or adbucted during attacks in South Sudan's Jonglei State in December 2011 and January 2012.
Following inter-communal violence on January 11 in northern Jonglei State, South Sudan, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is treating several people with serious wounds, including women and children.
Renewed intercommunal violence in Jonglei State, South Sudan, has forced thousands of families to flee into the bush, where they have no access to assistance, including medical care.
MSF is scaling up its response in South Sudan to an influx of refugees and working to prevent malnourishment in the face of a possible food shortage in Northern Bahr al Ghazal State.
This testimony from a 33-year-old refugee in the Doro camp in South Sudan describes the hardships he and his family have faced since arriving in the overcrowded camp.
Despite the ostensible cessation of the fighting that wracked Ivory Coast earlier this year, violence against civilians has continued in some rural regions, particularly in the southwest. In mid-September, for instance, up to 16 people were killed and 50 homes were burned in an attack on the town of Zriglo.
On May 26, a suicide bomber killed 36 people and wounded approximately 60 more near a police station in northwestern Pakistan’s Hangu district, just a few blocks from the hospital where MSF’s team lives and works.
MSF treated more than 100 people, including many women and children who'd been shot, in the South Sudan town of Pieri following a brutal rampage in Jonglei State last week.
This past January, the people of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly for independence, and in July the world will see the birth of a new country. It will be a country that faces enormous challenges—not least the urgent medical and humanitarian needs of millions of people.
MSF has treated 21 wounded people in Agok, south of Abyei, and donated drugs and equipment to a hospital in Abyei town. Teams are discussing the provision of aid in the north with authorities.
A boy holds his younger brother as he stands in a field in Gogrial, in southern Sudan. The people of southern Sudan will face a huge choice on January 9, when they vote in a referendum that could result in the birth of a new country.
In southern Sudan, most medical facilities were destroyed during more than two decades of civil war. Now, the dire lack of health clinics, the long distances involved in reaching them, often days of walking and the unattainable costs of care are all barriers to people seeking medical help.
"The kala azar treatment is very hard. While on kala azar medicines, Deng became very sick with jaundice. He had to receive a blood transfusion from his uncle, which did help him."
In 2010, MSF responded to medical emergencies and provided nutritional support, reproductive healthcare, kala azar treatment, counseling services, surgery, and pediatric and obstetric care.
"We found that two factors were irregular this year. First, it was highly unusual that cases would begin as early as July. This is seven weeks earlier than last year. Secondly, the high number of cases..."
Given the current outbreak of the parasitic disease, more capacity to deal with the influx of patients is needed. The new site in Malakal comes in addition to MSF project sites in Lankien and Pagil and surrounding areas, all of which are treating unusually high numbers of kala azar patients.
Like his mother and elder sister, two-year-old Pal suffered from kala azar, also known as leishmaniasis, a very serious disease, before receiving treatment from us in Pagil, Southern Sudan.
MSF has set up an additional base in Pagil, in Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, to deal with an alarming increase in the number of patients infected with kala azar—or visceral leishmaniasis.
After three separate security incidents forced the suspension of MSF's activites in Gumuruk, in Jonglei State, MSF calls on all parties to respect the neutraility of its medical activities and facilities.
Moses Chol, an MSF emergency coordinator in Southern Sudan, speaks about the country's high incidence of malnutrition and MSF's efforts to provide more nutritional aid to those in need.
Following a series of cattle raids that started on June 27 near Lekwongole in Jonglei State, MSF treated five male patients for violent trauma wounds, between the ages of two and 30.
This past weekend, MSF, at the request of the local Ministry of Health, treated and evacuated three people who'd suffered gunshot wounds during protests in Unity State of South Sudan.
Nairobi/New York, December 14 2009 - The people of Southern Sudan are trapped in a worsening crisis following the most violent year since the 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war with the North. However, the response to the escalating emergency is inadequate, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
This year, MSF has witnessed a worrying deterioration in the situation in the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan, with severe medical humanitarian implications for the population.
MSF is responding to outbreaks of kala azar—a severe parasitic disease—in Southern Sudan. The emergency is in several locations across the eastern part of the region, and MSF is treating patients in its clinics in Pibor and Lankien, both in Jonglei State, and using mobile teams in Rom, in Upper Nile State, to actively trace patients.
On Sunday, September 20, yet another violent clash broke out in Duk Patdiet, Jonglei State, in Southern Sudan. This is part of an escalating wave of violence in the region that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year.
On August 29, a violent attack in Twic East County, Jonglei State in Southern Sudan, resulted in the reported deaths of 42 people, many of them women and children. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is currently mobilizing resources to help the victims of the attack, which injured more than 60 persons and displaced up to 24,000 people.
In the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in the south of neighboring Sudan, Ugandan rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been perpetrating acts of extreme violence on civilians in response to operations conducted against them by national armies of the DRC, Uganda, and southern Sudan.
MSF provides care to hundreds of thousands of people in six states in Southern Sudan. In recent months, increasing violence and insecurity caused mostly by fighting between different tribes, as well as heightened tensions around disarmament initiatives, criminality in the regional capital, Juba, and road banditry has made it more difficult for MSF field teams to reach people in need of aid.
MSF has been forced to make the decision to temporarily evacuate its team, as the insecurity in and around the town has reached dangerous levels. MSF is the only healthcare provider in Pibor town.
On Friday, May 8, an attack on the village of Torkej in Upper Nile State in Southern Sudan, located on the border with Jonglei State, resulted in the arrival of many war wounded to a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Nasir. Patients reported that many people were dead in the village and that thousands were forced to flee. Torkej is approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Nasir, where MSF runs a hospital providing basic health care and surgical care.
Following recent outbreaks of violence between rival ethnic groups in Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are treating wounded from each side, assisting those who fled their villages, and treating malnutrition and cholera.
MSF nurse practitioner Deborah Van Dyke helped run a medical program in the remote village of Pibor. Here she describes the experiences that affected her the most.
Malnutrition is the most acute problem for the displaced population from Abyei and its surroundings. Before the fighting began, malnutrition rates were above 50 percent, based on screenings carried out in the hospital in Abyei.
The fighting that erupted in Abyei on May 14 has forced nearly 50,000 people to flee. They are now scattered around the area with little access to food, shelter, or water.
Geneva/Khartoum/Juba/New York, May 22, 2008 — Since May 14, fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has devastated the town of Abyei, which has been virtually destroyed. Almost the entire local population has fled to the north and south of the town to seek refuge.
In Northern Bahr el Ghazal, families returning to southern Sudan after the end of a 21-year-civil war face innumerable hardships, including a lack of food and continued violence.
Since February 2008, the situation in Aweil, Bahr-el-Ghazal State, has worsened. The combination of: clashes between armed forces and tribal militias along the disputed border of northern and southern Sudan; ongoing political tensions; increased food insecurity due to flooding last year and the return of thousands of Sudanese former refugees; and a lack of functioning medical facilities has prompted MSF to launch an emergency response.
In southern Sudan, thousands of families displaced by the recent armed conflict in the oil-rich region of Abyei are in need of emergency assistance. This is occurring in a region where resources are already extremely depleted.
More than three years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, medical needs remain critical, and simmering tensions create a precarious security situation. This report focuses on the areas of Greater Upper Nile, including Unity, northern Jonglei and Upper Nile States. Although extrapolations to other areas must be done with caution, the health situation in Greater Upper Nile can be considered representative of many of the war-devastated communities in southern Sudan.
Southern Sudan has paid one of the highest prices among countries affected by meningitis this year. Several teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) are caring for those affected by the deadly epidemic and vaccinating the population at risk throughout a number of states in the region. To make matters worse, cholera is quickly progressing in a number of areas.
Doctors Without Borders is approved by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (C) (3) tax-exempt organization, and all donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law. Doctors Without Borders Federal Identification Number (EIN) is 13-3433452.
