Other folks in distant areas of Greater Nile mumble in South Sudan are suffering from a scarcity of obtain entry to to healthcare, since attacks on clinical boats and armed looting in clinical services since the beginning of the one year cling forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to shut our clinical institution and dwell our beef up to 13 community-essentially based totally mostly healthcare services in Ulang county. The closure of MSF’s clinical institution has left an field of larger than 200km from the Ethiopian border to Malakal town with out any functional specialised healthcare facility. MSF calls on all parties to adhere to international humanitarian law, stop such indiscriminate attacks, and be certain that the safety of clinical services, neatly being staff, and sufferers.
Since February 2025, South Sudan has experienced its worst spike in violence since the 2018 peace deal. Fighting between authorities forces and armed formative years militias has escalated across a few states, including Greater Nile, Jonglei, Solidarity, and Central Equatoria. This has led to mass displacement, frequent civilian casualties, and a total crumple of already fragile public services.
No topic these closures, MSF remains devoted to supporting the healthcare wants of displaced and inclined individuals in Ulang and Nasir counties. We now cling got a mobile emergency crew assessing wants who’re animated to present non everlasting healthcare services wherever security prerequisites and obtain entry to enable. MSF continues to present healthcare services in our other initiatives in Greater Nile mumble, including in Malakal and Renk counties.
An escalating vogue of violence against healthcare
In January 2025, MSF faced an attack by unidentified gunmen shut to Nasir, shooting at our boats as they returned from delivering clinical offers to Nasir County clinical institution. This attack forced us to suspend all outreach actions in Nasir and Ulang counties, which included clinical referrals by boat alongside the Sobat River that allowed females to ship their infants safely.
In April 2025, armed individuals forced their scheme into the clinical institution in Ulang the build they threatened staff and sufferers and looted the clinical institution so broadly that MSF no longer had the mandatory sources to continue operations safely and effectively.
“They took everything: medical equipment, laptops, patients’ beds and mattresses from the wards, and approximately nine months’ worth of medical supplies, including two planeloads of surgical kits and drugs delivered just the week before. Whatever they could not carry, they destroyed,” says Zakaria Mwatia, MSF head of mission for South Sudan.
Within a month, one more MSF clinical institution used to be bombed in Customary Fangak, a town in the neighbouring Jonglei mumble, leaving the capacity completely non-functional. Here’s segment of a worrying upward push in attacks on healthcare services in South Sudan.
Native communities depended on MSF for prenatal care
“During my third pregnancy, I decided to come to the hospital well in advance before my delivery. I lost my two first children because I did not make it to the hospital on time,” says Nyapual Jok, a young mother from the outskirts of Ulang county.
Nyapual had been transported to the clinical institution by certainly one of MSF’s boat ambulances, since she lives in a miles off village far faraway from Ulang clinical institution. Ulang, a mountainous flood-inclined field, is characterised by seen distant villages which in most cases suffer severe mobility restrictions during the rainy seasons. MSF ran boat transportation services to obtain certain obtain entry to to healthcare to moms be pleased Nyapual.
“It’s very hard to access healthcare here. If we had a hospital closer during my previous deliveries, maybe my children would be alive today,” adds Nyapual.
It be very laborious to obtain entry to healthcare right here. If we had a clinical institution nearer during my earlier deliveries, perhaps my children will doubtless be alive today. Nyapual Jok, a young mother from the outskirts of Ulang county
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Nyapual shared her story in November 2024, most interesting two months earlier than the attack on the same boats which helped her ship her dinky one safely.
Facility closures obtain gaps that are complicated to absorb
The attacks’ produce of stopping clinical referrals by boat has had deadly penalties for the individuals living in distant areas in the sector. Other folks in Ulang and Nasir counties had to look forward to days, infrequently even weeks, to obtain a boat to steal them to Ulang clinical institution. In desperate cases, they’d ride for days by scheme of a muddy panorama – a land that is virtually very unlikely to detestable on foot during rainy season.
“She was in labour when she suffered birth complications – she had to get to a hospital as soon as possible,” says Veronica Nyakuoth, an MSF midwife at the Ulang clinical institution, a few patient she attended to in the maternity ward. “Normally, MSF mobile teams would have been able to pick her up by boat, but since that service was cut off, instead she had to wait two days for a private boat to take her. When she finally made it to Ulang hospital, it was too late: the team could not find a heartbeat from the twins she was carrying in her womb.”
150,000 individuals in the reduction of off from care
With the closure of the clinical institution and the withdrawal of beef up to the decentralised services including transportation of sufferers, bigger than 150,000 individuals will now face principal more difficulties accessing healthcare in Ulang county and more would maybe face the tragic fate that Veronica’s patient had to suffer. Over 800 sufferers with persistent illnesses akin to HIV, tuberculosis, and others cling lost obtain entry to to remedy due to the closure of MSF services in the sector.
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“We need a hospital nearby that can help mothers and children. Without it, many will suffer and lose their lives,” says Nyapual.
MSF in Ulang
Since 2018, MSF had been providing a must-cling neatly being services in Ulang including trauma, maternal and paediatric care. The groups moreover supported 13 services to supply obligatory healthcare services. Over the past seven years, MSF groups performed bigger than 139,730 outpatient consultations, admitted 19,350 sufferers, treated 32,966 cases of malaria, and assisted 2,685 deliveries, amongst other obligatory services. During this time, MSF moreover equipped beef up to Nasir County clinical institution and answered to a few emergencies and disease outbreaks.
Nyapual’s story, alongside with those of many others, serves as a stark reminder that healthcare is a principal apt and would maybe never be a target. The penalties of attacks to healthcare are bigger than the injury to a building; it be the lack of hope, security, and the likelihood for a more healthy future.
