The hospital warehouse looks like a pile of rubble. The concrete walls have collapsed and the corrugated iron sheets that served as the roof have been swept away. Plastic buckets, cups and plastic tubs are scattered around the huge impact crater.
The hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the town of Lankien in the South Sudanese state of Jonglei was hit by a bomb on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the aid organization reports. This was dropped in an air strike by the South Sudanese Air Force. “One Médecins Sans Frontières employee suffered minor injuries,” the aid organization said on Wednesday: “The hospital’s main warehouse was destroyed in the attack and we lost the majority of our vital medical supplies.”
“Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has previously shared the GPS coordinates of all our facilities with the government and other parties to the conflict and received confirmation that our locations are known,” MSF Chief of Operations Gul Badshah said in a press release: “The South Sudanese government forces are the only armed party capable of carrying out airstrikes in the country.”
Another MSF health center in the town of Pieri, further south, was robbed by militias at the same time. These only two health centers serve around 250,000 people in the area – and must now be closed, according to MSF: “While we are aware of the enormous need in the country, we find it unacceptable to be the target of attacks,” explains Badshah.
Fight in Jonglei
Since January his Bundesstate Jonglei fought northeast of the capital Juba. Last week, South Sudan’s army deployed troops in Jonglei to fight SPLA-IO rebels who had previously threatened to march on Juba to free their leader, suspended Vice President Riek Machar. He has been under house arrest since March last year. His trial for treason is currently being heard in court.
Already in December, the government of South Sudan gave aid organizations access to the contested Jonglei state banned, since then no planes have been allowed to land there – not even to fly patients in need or pregnant women to another hospital. Since then, MSF has been forced to withdraw its employees. After all, the doctors were evacuated from the hospital in Lankien on the night of the air raid as rumors of a possible attack circulated.
At the same time, the UN World Food Program (WFP) is now forced to stop aid deliveries in the neighboring state of Upper Nile, specifically in the Baliet district. “Between last Friday and Sunday, a convoy of 12 boats carrying more than 1,500 tonnes of food and other relief supplies was attacked several times by armed youth,” a UN statement said.
This hits the displaced people from Jonglei particularly hard. According to the UN, up to 280,000 people have been displaced by fighting there since the beginning of the year, most of them wandering around in the undergrowth. The problem: The state has been flooded for years, the farmers’ fields are already under water – and now the rainy season is starting again, which will lead to further flooding. In other words, people are dependent on food deliveries even without war.