Internally displaced persons living inside the UNMISS base in Bor complain that they lack tents to cover them from rains, the first of which fell earlier this month.

There are 5,694 people living inside the camp, according to UN data. Almost all of them are ethnically Nuer, one of two main tribes in Jonglei.

Before the sacking of Bor, a substantial Nuer minority lived in the city. Now, all of them have left the town to take shelter in the UN base on the outskirts or else fled elsewhere. 

Reverend William Tut, chairman of the Nuer community residing inside the UNMISS base, said that there were not enough shelters for the people.

He also said they lack grinding mills for the sorghum which was provided to them by the UN, making it difficult for children in the camp to digest the food.

However, Tut pointed to some improvement in the overall health situation in the camp, especially among children. "As we are talking now the death toll has improved, it is not like it was before due to the availability of some medicines from different NGOs working here inside the camp," he stated.

Data published earlier this month by the World Health Organization showed that the under five mortality rate at the Bor camp peaked in February at more than eight times the emergency threshold, and thereafter declined sharply.

According to the primary health care provider in the camp, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the main illnesses in the camp are malaria, watery diarrhea, and skin infections, with some cases of bloody diarrhea also reported.

In spite of the intervention by IRC, however, there are “inadequate reproductive health services and referral for emergency obstetric care in Bor,” according to the Health Cluster, a coordinating body of different aid organizations.

The Health Cluster disclosed also in an update on 20 March that there were no laboratory services in the Bor site, nor HIV/AIDS drugs, while funding for IRC is expected to run out on 6 April.

No way to leave base

Rev. William Tut reiterates that it is still too unsafe for people who are ethnically Nuer to leave the base. He told Radio Tamazuj that one member of the community was beaten and then disappeared recently when he went outside the gate of the base.

“There’s no way to go out,” he said, explaining that one man left the camp on 13 March to fetch something and since he has disappeared. “So that is why we are afraid. Nobody is leaving,” he added.

Tut also pointed out that though the government claims to have resumed its work in Bor until now the governor has not come to the base to speak to the 5,000 trapped civilians.

He said that they had heard some other Jonglei civil servants have been paid in other parts of South Sudan, so he does not understand why the ones at the UNMISS base have not received their salaries.

Related:

Interview: ‘We’re trapped inside UN base in Bor’ (2 March)

File photo: An internally displaced boy walks next to barbed wire inside a United Nations Missions in Sudan (UNMIS) compound in Juba, 19 December 2013 (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)