The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Now in Old Fangak, Gray, with a team of nine other ICRC doctors and medical staff, continues to treat patients who fled Maiwut, most of them suffering gunshot wounds.
In another part of the treatment facility lies five-year-old Nyachan Makuach with a gunshot wound to her abdomen. Lying in woollen blankets, she floats in and out of consciousness. Her eyes are swollen and sweat drips from her small forehead.
According to hospital staff she is traumatised by the memory of seeing her father being killed.
“She remembers everything,” said the ICRC’s surgical team leader Louise Humphreys.
Makuach’s uncle, who came with her to Old Fangak, is losing weeks’ worth of work as a farmer in the field.
“But we are glad to receive treatment here,” he said.
– ‘Fighting will continue’ –
South Sudan’s civil war erupted in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.
Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced from their homes in the years since as a series of peace deals have been abandoned. The latest UN figures say half the population — roughly six million people — will need emergency food aid this month.
With fighting ongoing around Pagak, the Old Fangak clinic has scaled-up its staff numbers, flying in additional doctors and nurses from South Sudan’s capital Juba.
“The last weeks have seen tens of thousands of people being displaced,” the rebel spokesman Lam told AFP.
“If the army advances, the fighting will continue.”
The loss of Pagak would be a major defeat to the already weakened opposition.
David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), said last week he was “gravely concerned” by the situation and called for both parties to stop the fighting.
