About 40,000 South Sudanese citizens are living in flood conditions on a United Nations compound in Bentiu with nowhere else to go. Many of them literally have no place to lie down because of the floodwaters and they sleep standing up.

Residents of the UN-protected camp are ethnic Nuers. They refuse to leave the camp because they fear being killed by government forces. Earlier this week several unarmed ethnic Nuers were shot dead in a government-controlled part of Upper Nile State.

Doctors Without Borders stated yesterday, “People have a choice between being killed or raped and living in conditions not fit for human life, let alone dignity.”

As explained in a UN humanitarian update yesterday, the poor living conditions are the result of continued heavy rains in Bentiu: “Many shelters were deep under water; sewage drains were overflowing and market activities were disrupted as people were not able to move around the site.”

Ivan Gayton, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said the conditions in the camp are “horrifying and an affront to human dignity.”

In an account published on the website of the aid organization yesterday, Gayton explained that the flooding started in July but has since worsened.

“Much of the camp was flooded in July with the first heavy downpour of the rainy season. Over one thousand makeshift shelters filled with sewage-contaminated floodwater. People used cooking pots to scoop up the water, tried to build mud dams across doorways to prevent water entering, but to no avail,” he said.

“Most of the camp is now knee-deep in sewage, thousands of people cannot lay down and therefore sleep standing up with their infants in their arms.”

MSF says that it has seen over 200 deaths in its hospital in the camp since May 2014, most of them children. The aid group says that mortality rates have improved over the last few weeks but at least one child still dies every day.

Gayton stressed the reasons why people will not leave the camp, saying, “They’re too scared to move out of this square kilometer of swamp, fenced in by an earth wall and moat.”  

“Outside the camp, tension remains high and there is a heavy military presence. Groups of armed men dominate every building and public place in the town. Normal activities are at a standstill and there are few civilians left.”

“Garbage and looted goods are piled up everywhere. The threat of further violence hangs in the air and the sound of low-level combat is audible in the distance.”

Gayton added, “Civilians entering and exiting the camp are subjected to violence and harassment from armed men positioned a few meters outside the front gate.”

“Women and girls searching for firewood outside the camp are at particular risk of sexual violence and MSF has treated several survivors already.”

Photo: A woman holds a fish that she caught inside her shelter in Bentiu PoC, South Sudan (MSF)

Related:

Situation ‘very bad’ after flooding at Bentiu protection site (25 July)