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Medical charity in Sudan alarmed by health and food crisis

More than three years after the January 2005 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), health needs in southern Sudan remain critical and simmering tensions create a precarious security situation, a medical charity says, reports CISA News.

The 21-year civil conflict killed 2 million people and forced more than 4 million from their homes, according to U.N. estimates. In 2008 the health situation remains dire, with high levels of mortality and morbidity and an urgent need for humanitarian aid, according to Doctors without Borders (MSF).

A viable health system for southern Sudan’s estimated 8 million people will take years and significant investment, while acute health needs remain unmet. The slow release of longer-term development funds is hampering the maintenance and improvement of existing health structures.

The few emergency medical organisations that remain in southern Sudan are shouldering an impossible burden trying to meet basic health needs. MSF’s health facilities in Greater Upper Nile are functioning at maximum capacity.

MSF stated that people throughout southern Sudan continue to die from preventable diseases or curable conditions because of the shortage of clinics, trained medical staff and medicines.

While the end of the war led to a degree of stability that has enabled many refugees and displaced to return to their homes and begin rebuilding their lives, this political stability is fragile as the root causes of the war are still unresolved.

“As some 1.2 million people return home, food shortages are a real concern in the Greater Upper Nile region. The return of displaced people and refugees following the peace agreement has put increased pressure on already-scarce food stocks,” MSF said.

Floods destroyed parts of the current and previous harvests, and fields lie fallow because of the presence of unexploded ordinances, further decreasing food availability in many areas. Food prices in the market have risen noticeably, threatening to deteriorate this situation further.

In some areas of the Greater Upper Nile region, acute malnutrition is above the emergency threshold levels defined by the World Health Organisation. When a similar rate was detected in the Darfur region, the United Nations raised several alarms. Unfortunately, the rates found in southern Sudan have caused little outcry.

Maternal mortality in southern Sudan is one of the highest in the world – with 2,053 maternal deaths for 100,000 live births. This rate is four times higher than for northern Sudan, and twice as high as the Darfur region.

[05/08/2008]

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