Children wade through the water and mud at Jamam refugee camp, where
heavy rains and flooding have worsened what was already a dire lack of
potable, clean water.
Alarming Mortality Rates Indicate Worsening Crisis
Preliminary studies reveal mortality rates nearly double the
emergency threshold in a refugee camp in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State,
currently home to a quarter of the roughly 120,000 refugees who have
fled Sudan’s Blue Nile State since late last year, the international
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) warned today.
The death rates were derived from rapid epidemiological surveys carried
out in the Jamam refugee camp in Maban County prior to the onset of
heavy seasonal rains that have flooded the camp and gravely expanded the
risk of illness for the already weakened refugees. All agencies
involved in the relief effort, led by the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR), must find better options for the people living in
Jamam camp, one of three refugee camps in the area. Failure to do so
will almost certainly lead to more misery and deaths.
“These people have fled terrible violence in Sudan and lost family
members during their arduous journeys for safety, and now they are
sitting exposed in refugee camps on a flood plain and dying from
preventable diseases due to horrific living conditions,” said Tara
Newell, MSF emergency coordinator in Jamam.
Having arrived with stories of violence and harrowing conditions in
Blue Nile, refugees in Upper Nile State, in many cases already ill, have
arrived in a place that is uniquely unsuited to accommodate more than
one hundred thousand refugees.
A baked mud wasteland in the dry season, and a mostly swampy flood
plain in the rainy season, there are few islands of dry ground and it is
extremely difficult to locate sites to drill boreholes for suitable
water. The refugees have been met with inadequate shelter and sanitation
facilities and far less than the standard minimum quantity of clean
water. Rising floodwater is worsening the crisis.
After heavy rains the majority of Jamam camp became flooded the night
of June 26. Latrines have overflowed, contaminating standing water.
There is a general shortage of potable water. Many camp residents sleep
in wet clothes under soaked blankets, leaving them vulnerable to
hypothermia.
Over the last two weeks, MSF medical teams in Jamam have treated at
least 2,500 people for diarrheal diseases, respiratory diseases,
malaria, and malnutrition. As the rains increase, more and more people
are falling ill, especially from malaria and hypothermia. Young children
are the most vulnerable.
“Our clinic is already filled with children suffering from pneumonia,
diarrhea, and malnutrition,” said Dr. Erna Rijnierse, working with MSF
in Jamam. “If they stay in these sorts of conditions, there could well
be profoundly distressing consequences.”
Preliminary medical data gathered by MSF in Jamam Camp during the week
of June 18, before the onset of consistent heavy rains, revealed a
mortality rate among children of 2.8 per 10,000 per day, above the
emergency threshold of 2/10,000 per day. The crude, or overall,
mortality rate was registered at 1.8, while the emergency threshold is
set at one. At the Jamam camp alone, almost nine children are dying per
day. Sixty-five percent of deaths were reportedly due to diarrhea.
The rains will also further exacerbate unhygienic conditions in the
camps, creating ideal conditions for the further spread of disease. The
soaked earth is already making transport to all the refugee camps in the
area exceedingly difficult. To meet the immediate lifesaving needs of
the refugees, roads and airstrips must be improved to transport aid
personnel and heavy equipment, in order to meet the needs of the highly
vulnerable, exhausted population.
“The living conditions in Jamam are simply unacceptable” said Newell.
“What’s needed is for all agencies involved, led by the UNHCR, to join
together to come up with a solution that can remove these refugees from
the health risks associated with the dire living conditions in the camp.
We have to proceed with a great sense of urgency.”
MSF has been providing aid to refugees in Upper Nile State since November 2011, operating field hospitals, mobile clinics, intensive
therapeutic feeding centers, and measles vaccination campaigns. MSF
teams provide more than 6,000 consultations per week for the refugees in
Upper Nile State. The organization is also distributing basic survival
items (like plastic sheeting, blankets and jerrycans), operating water
and rehydration points, monitoring mortality and morbidity levels among
newly arrived refugees, and providing emergency assistance to people
moving from the border and between camps.
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