The war in South Sudan began two years after independence from Sudan (2011). 2013 marks the beginning of violence and armed struggle between various rival groups as part of a conflict over the political leadership of the country. After the war, the country was hit by famine, recurrent floods and health epidemics.
The South Sudanese people have always been struggling for survival, from the dream of independence to the nightmare of hunger. Seven years after the beginning of the war, a possible peace seems closer and real. Indeed, reconciliation negotiations between government representatives and opposition movements have begun. A long path, for a ceasefire and a joint declaration on political and humanitarian principles that should end in the next few weeks in the city of Rome.
Political violence decreased but never stopped in South Sudan. Added to this are the recent floods that have caused huge flows of people fleeing in search of shelter, all this happening in the COVID-19 pandemic scenario which is an alarming concern in already so difficult living conditions, in a country that it does not have adequate health facilities.
Protection of Civilians sites
One of the results of the civil war protracted over the years,is the creation of the PoC (protection of civilians), camps for displaced persons located in different areas of the country and which were set up following ethnic persecutions, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes. People who had lost everything, needed shelter and humanitarian aid. At the end of this year, the United Nations Security Corps for South Sudan – UNMISS – will gradually give up control of those territories, in view of a normalization of the situation.
“In the Malakal camp, one of INTERSOS’s main operational stations, in the northern region of the Upper Nile, we have started a new project dedicated to the many minors residing in the PoC“, says Stefano Antichi, head of INTERSOS mission in South Sudan. “Our mission has been present since 2006 in this devastated territory. Today, more than ever, we need to work on education, school system, reopen the schools, rehabilitating toilets and providing help especially in this period of pandemic, such as disinfecting the classrooms and common spaces and carring on awareness campaigns for students and teachers on the importance of hygiene and precautions to prevent COVID-19″.
What about displaced people
What about the hundreds of thousands of people who still today, from the beginning of the conflict, live in the camps, with the army at the gates and live the difficulty of rebuilding a dignified life? Although they are allowed to move freely and go to the city, their villages, their homes are still destroyed. Only rubble all around. The destruction by the conflict is visible and tangible. In South Sudan there are 9.6 million people in a state of food insecurity and 2.55 million are displaced throughout the country. 30 thousand is the number of ‘official’ COVID-19 infections currently registered in the country. A number certainly inadequate compared to reality, considering the internal difficulties in being able to trace the spread of the epidemic, in a country where it is hard to apply containment measure, as in the case of PoC camps.
“These people need all kinds of support. They need food, hygienic items, drinking water. The presence of rivers represents the only possibility for personal hygiene, often increasing the risk of causing deseases” says Stefano. Beyond the official peace agreements, tensions and episodes of violence between different communities are constant. Young people belonging to different communities continue to clash, causing accidents and above all increasing the already high insecurity in the country, especially for women and girls, often survivors of violence and abuse.
The INTERSOS project aims at strengthening the activities on two fundamental components for the dignity and protection of the rights of South Sudanese people: school and water.