‘Zero services in South Sudan’s Wau camp’: Darfur refugees

Dozens of Darfuris living in a refugee camp near Wau, capital of Western Bahr El Ghazal state in South Sudan, are suffering from a complete lack of services at the camp.

“Education and health services are entirely absent,” one of the Darfuri camp residents told Dabanga.

He related how he and a number of other Darfuri displaced left the camps in Darfur, to search for “better living conditions and work opportunities” in South Sudan.  “We settled at the Rubkona camp near the UN base in Unity state, just over the border, where we found some means to earn a living. Yet, because of the fighting there, we had to flee again, and went towards Wau.”

The refugee explained that there were originally 165 Darfuris in the Rubkona camp. “Most of them sought refuge in Bentiu, the capital of Unity state. A number of them were killed there during the recent clashes between the South Sudanese army and the rebels.”

“Yet 65 people,” he said, “among them nine women and ten children, fled towards Wau. They are in urgent need of medical care.”

He appealed to the South Sudanese authorities and aid organisations to “keep their promises”, and transfer them to “one of the camps supported by international organisations in South Sudan”.