South Sudan: UN Warns of Disaster

With no political solution to the conflict that has torn South Sudan apart in sight, senior United Nations officials working in the country stressed today that they are in a "race against time" ahead of the rainy season to help prevent a health and hunger catastrophe.

Hilde Johnson, the Secretary-General's Special Representative and head of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told a news conference in the capital, Juba, that plans are under way to establish alternative sites for tens of thousands of civilians who sought protection in UN compounds.

It is estimated that 70,000 civilians are currently sheltering at UN compounds around the country which opened its gates to offer protection when the fighting between Government and opposition forces began in mid-December 2013. Overall, about a million people in South Sudan have been forced from their homes due to the conflict.

"It was always clear to us that our UN compounds were never designed to accommodate such huge numbers of people for such a length of time," Ms. Johnson stated. "The conditions have been very difficult from the outset. The sites are alarmingly over-crowded and basic services not more than rudimentary.

"With the rainy season now settling in, conditions are getting worse," she said, warning that the sites in Tomping and Malakal, in particular, are at imminent risk of turning into "death traps."

These areas are likely to get flooded during the upcoming rainy season, and have to be closed before there is an outbreak of deadly water-borne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid.

Following the violent rains that raged over Juba a couple of weeks ago, half of the latrines in the Tomping protection site collapsed and the drainage systems were severely damaged. "As the rains increase, we all may find ourselves with a health catastrophe on our hands," said Ms. Johnson.

As such, the Mission has decided to close the Tomping protection site in May. Several hundred internally displaced persons from that site have already been relocated to a new site in the Jebel area adjacent to the UN House. Once the construction of the new site is complete, all of the displaced will be transferred there. "We are in a race against time to establish the alternative sites," said Ms. Johnson.