South Sudan is facing an “absolutely massive” influx of refugees from war-torn Sudan as well as a rapidly increasing cholera epidemic, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Monday.
The medical charity said 5,000 people were crossing the border every day. The United Nations has recently put the figure even higher at 7,000 to 10,000 per day.
Sudan is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies since fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, leaving thousands dead and millions displaced.
An MSF emergency coordinator in the town of Renk, near a transit center that holds about 17,000 people, according to the UN, said they were working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide care.
“But the situation is absolutely catastrophic, and it is not enough,” said Emmanuel Montobio.
Facilities are expanding, but “more than 100 injured patients, many of them seriously injured, are still awaiting surgery,” he said.
Alhida Hammed Renk fled after her village was attacked and was shot in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.
“Houses were burning and everyone was running in different directions,” he said.
Now he has no shelter and is living under a tree but does not want to return to Sudan.
“The house is no longer a home. It is full of bad memories,” he said.
‘death’s Door’
South Sudan is ill-equipped to handle the influx of thousands of people seeking asylum fleeing war, while the young country itself struggles with violence, endemic poverty and natural disasters.
MSF said large numbers of its own civilians were living in camps for internally displaced people and many were now facing an “alarming and rapid increase” in cholera cases.
It said 92 people had died after the outbreak in Unity state, and it had treated more than 1,210 people in just four weeks in the city of Bentiu.
In vast camps near the capital Juba, home to thousands of people, MSF said it had treated about 1,700 suspected cases, with 25 deaths reported by the community.
“What we are seeing is not just a cholera outbreak – it is the result of systemic neglect,” said Mamman Mustafa, head of MSF’s South Sudan mission.
He described “mountains of uncollected waste”, broken latrines and raw sewage in the camps, leaving behind contaminated drinking water and a legacy of infected residents at “death’s door”.
Without immediate action, Mustafa said, “we expect cholera cases to skyrocket in the coming days and weeks.”