Photography: Médecins Sans Frontières: South Sudan: Facing up to Reality
Health Crisis Deepens as Violence Escalates in South Sudan
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides care to millions of people in six states in South Sudan. The repeated waves of tribal violence in Jonglei state, and the targeting of MSF health facilities, made it extremely difficult for MSF to reach people in need of aid.
Conflict between various ethnic groups in Jonglei state has been ongoing for decades, killing and displacing thousands of people. MSF has demonstrated its complete impartiality and neutrality over the years, working in many different communities in South Sudan. In 2011, three MSF medical facilities were targeted in Jonglei state. MSF condemns the targeting of medical facilities by any armed group, and commits to continuing to bring humanitarian aid and medical assistance to the population of Jonglei state.
Present in the most rural and neglected regions of South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières has been active in the country since 1979. Rural villages, home to millions of South Sudanese, are completely cut off and suffer greatly from the most basic of medical needs and emergencies.
South Sudan is desperate for the most basic of services – clean water, access to food, education and health care. The further deteriorating security situation only adds to this humanitarian emergency where medical needs are critical. Famine and acute malnutrition, malaria, kala azar, and outbreaks of preventable diseases such as meningitis and cholera, are a constant threat, and mortality rates for pregnant women and children in the new nation are the highest in the world.
