South Sudan: Rainy Season Adds to Refugees' Misery

The conflict in South Sudan has displaced thousands of people. Many have crossed the border into Ethiopia only to find themselves in overcrowded refugee camps. The rainy season adds to their woes.

Every day some 1,200 refugees from South Sudan arrive in Ethiopia, most of them women and children. They sleep in tents, often on wet ground. The refugees are fleeing from the conflict in South Sudan that erupted in December 2013. The conflict is between the government of President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, now rebel leader, Riek Machar.

A cry of pain is heard from one of the tents in the Kule refugee camp. A South Sudanese family has just witnessed the death of their six month-old baby. They had walked for 25 days to escape the conflict in their home country. Now their child is dead.

The refugees are living in appalling conditions in the camps. Overcrowded tents are filled mostly with women, children and old men. Most wear tattered clothes and have no shoes. All they have is what they managed to carry on their long walk to to escape the violence in the world's youngest nation.

Tents provide little shelter

On arrival, refugees are usually allocated individual tents that have a roof but are otherwise exposed to the open air.

More people arrive every day in the overcrowded camps

To keep away the cold, especially at night, they fasten blankets and pieces of cloth to the main tent. They sleep on the ground. Since the onset of the rainy season, the ground is constantly wet and muddy.

Bol Gadcoth says this is the second time he's become a refugee. The first time, he spent close to 10 years in a camp during the civil war between North and South Sudan. He hopes this time will be shorter.

"I don't want to be in refugee camps for two years or even one year. I don't like it , I want to go back within a few months," he said.

Peter Jiech Ruach was a local politician in Malakal, one of the regional states of South Sudan. Together with five family members, he also fled. They walked for nine days to the refugee camp. Ruach used to live abroad and had only just returned to his native land. "I came from America where I was for 19 years. It's better to live in your own country, that's why I came back," he said.