More than 20,000 people who fled massacres in Bentiu town and sought shelter at a UN base now face acute water shortages because there is not enough water at the base.

In a press release the UN children’s fund said that the population had swelled to more than 23,000 and now had access to just one litre of safe drinking water per day per person .

“Those who survived horrendous violence now face the very real risk of fatal water-borne disease outbreak”, said UNICEF’s Representative in South Sudan, Jonathan Veitch.

UNICEF called the base ‘desperately overcrowded’, adding that the emergency response was under ‘unbearable strain’.

“Trucks that bring fresh water every day to the camp face a precarious security situation and frequently become stuck on roads muddied by heavy rains,” reads the press statement.

It adds that recent rains have also collapsed a number of latrines at the camp, with now just one latrine per 350 people.

Aid workers say they are responding to the situation by drilling new boreholes for water and constructing new latrines. 

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