South Sudan

Background
Africa’s largest country, Sudan covers an area about the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. While the conflict in its Darfur region, in the northwest, has received extensive news coverage in recent years, the plight of south Sudan, and the devastation caused by its two decades of civil war with the north, has been all but forgotten. More than 1.5 million people died, whether from violence, famine, or disease, and as many as four million others were forced to flee their homes and livelihoods in order to survive. The so-called “Lost Boys” — children forced from their villages by the war who traveled hundreds of miles through dangerous terrain to reach the relative safety of refugee camps in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya — were among these refugees.

A historic January 2005 peace accord between the government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army has now put an end to the long-running conflict, but the challenge this region faces in rebuilding is immense. Already one of the most underdeveloped regions in the world, southern Sudan was left utterly devastated by the fighting, without basic infrastructure, health or education facilities, or even access to fundamentals such as reliable supplies of food or clean drinking water. The economic dividends of peace could be great: Sudan has large areas of cultivatable land, gold and cotton, and significant oil reserves. With hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and refugees returning to the region now, its people need help meeting their basic needs and beginning the reconstruction process.

What International Medical Corps Is Doing
International Medical Corps  set up its operation in southern Sudan in 1994, when it established partnerships with local nongovernmental organizations, village health committees, and local health providers to support health care in the region. IMC helped reestablish a county-wide primary health care system and provided support for the local referral hospital in Tambura County, Western Equatoria. In Tambura and Yambio counties, IMC dramatically reduced the incidence of river blindness (onchocerciasis) and sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis)—two deadly and prevalent parasitic diseases—by establishing surveillance, treatment, and control programs. Once the fighting ended, and refugees and internally displaced people began to return to their homes, IMC’s programs in Tambura and Yambio expanded significantly to accommodate more than 95,000 returnees in need of health care and basics such as food, water, and shelter.

As southern Sudan began to rebuild its social and economic infrastructure, International Medical Corps’ programs shifted focus to address malnutrition, provide health care, build local health care capacity, and ensureg the sustainability of its programs in the Upper Nile Region and Western Equatoria. Among other efforts, IMC is:

• managing a health care clinic and four primary health care units for over 45,000 beneficiaries in Bieh State’s remote Waat and Dirror counties in the Upper Nile Region;
• addressing high levels of malnutrition in the area by conducting assessments of residents’ nutritional status and implementing community-based therapeutic care;
• implementing a prevention and treatment program for deadly kala-azar disease—a parasitic infection that can cause fever, severe weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver, and anemia—which is endemic in this area;
• conducting community health education campaigns on topics including kala-azar disease, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and child nutrition in partnership with local authorities and community groups;

In Ezo, Tambura, and Yambio counties in Western Equatoria, IMC is:

• providing emergency health and water and sanitation facilities at refugee way-stations for populations in transit;
• rehabilitating 41 primary health care clinics and units to address the needs of more than 400,000 residents and 55,000 returnees;
• rehabilitating two maternity clinics to provide emergency obstetric services for women in the region;
• providing primary health care training, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment for village, community, and maternal and child health care workers; and
• transfering ownership of successful Guinea worm and river blindness eradication programs to Western Equatoria’s local county health department.

As a member of Operation Lifeline Sudan, a consortium of two United Nations agencies–UNICEF and the World Food Program–International Medical Corps  has been committed from the outset to providing humanitarian assistance to those impacted by the ravages of war and famine throughout southern Sudan. This work continues, and IMC hopes to be able to offer livelihood programs, HIV/AIDS awareness and mainstreaming, and increased primary health care services and supplies in the future, while strengthening partnerships with local communities.