As entire towns in South Sudan suffer devastating attacks, medical care has also come under fire, with patients shot in their beds, wards burned to the ground, medical equipment looted, and, in one case, an entire hospital destroyed, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced today. Hundreds of thousands of people have been effectively denied lifesaving assistance.
MSF staff witnessed the gruesome aftermath of recent armed attacks and clashes in Malakal in Upper Nile State, discovering patients murdered inside the town's Teaching Hospital. In another disturbing violation of medical structures since conflict erupted in mid-December 2013, an MSF team returned to Leer, in Unity State, and discovered the hospital thoroughly looted, burned and vandalized. Vast parts of the town appear to have been razed to the ground.
“Assaults on medical facilities and patients are part of a broader backdrop of brutal attacks on towns, markets and public facilities," said Raphael Gorgeu, MSF head of mission. "These attacks show a complete lack of respect for medical care and deprive the most vulnerable of life-saving assistance just when they need it most.”
Scenes of Horror in Malakal
On February 22, MSF teams discovered at least 14 dead bodies throughout the Malakal Teaching Hospital compound, scattered among 50 to 75 patients who remained in the facility, too weak or elderly to flee for safety. Several patients showed signs they had been shot dead while lying in their beds. Many of the hospital wards, including the therapeutic feeding center for malnourished children, had been burned, and general looting had clearly taken place throughout the hospital. MSF has evacuated several of the most severely ill patients to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) base in Malakal for treatment, 13 of whom were gunshot victims.
The full article continues at http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/medical-care-under-fire-south-sudan on MSF’s website.