South Sudan: Mental Health Response Gaps in South Sudan

Juba — Aid workers warn that while psychosocial support needs will mount for the tens of thousands of displaced people in South Sudan, the resources and skills needed to treat them are in short supply, and there is particular concern for men, who feel targeted in the ongoing fighting.

South Sudan has been no stranger to conflict in its short two-and-a-half year history. Emerging from a civil war with Sudan, the country, especially restive Jonglei State, has seen regular cattle raids, inter-communal clashes and battles between rebel groups and the national army.

What is unusual this time, according to Miranda Gaanderse, a protection officer with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), is the number of men who fled to UN bases and other relatively safe areas, or left the country entirely. There are still no exact numbers and the majority of displaced are women and children, but Gaanderse said the fact that hundreds of thousands of men have left their home indicates just how violent and traumatic the fighting has been.

The International Crisis Group estimates at least 10,000 people have been killed. An interim UN report on human rights violations found evidence of the targeted killing of civilians, gender-based violence, including gang rape, and torture by combatants on both sides of the conflict.

At least some of the violence seemed psychologically targeted, with agencies reporting bodies were mutilated and left in the middle of settlements to warn people to leave. In places like Bor, capital of Jonglei State, weeks after the fighting stopped, bodies still littered the streets because people were too scared or too scarce to remove them.

"Men were the main targets for violence," Gaanderse said, and as fighting continues, fear remains. In the displacement camps, she said, it is the women who leave to buy things or collect firewood. "Some men have been sitting there for almost three months. It has a huge impact along WITH psychological impacts."

In the absence of psychosocial services, she warned that people could turn to alcoholism or violence.

It looks as though they will have no choice but to sit for several more months. A late January cessation of hostilities agreement has been broken multiple times and ongoing peace talks in Addis Ababa have made little progress.

Martin Ojok Karial, a civil servant in Malakal, has been living at the UN base there for more than two months. He said he is "just really angry, because there is no reason... Now nothing happens. No food. No everything. No future."