First road convoy carrying aid for thousands displaced by fighting due to arrive late Friday
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – The first road convoy carrying aid for thousands of people displaced by South Sudan’s worst cycle of interethnic violence since independence was due to arrive in the town of Pibor late Friday, significantly boosting the humanitarian response.
An estimated 60,000 people have been uprooted in Jonglei, South Sudan’s largest state, since a series of attacks on towns and villages began in late December.
Thousands of young men from the rival Lou Nuer and Murle communities have raided villages, killing mainly women and children and stealing cattle.
At least 57 people were killed in a fresh outbreak of fighting on Wednesday, the government said.
“We’re the first convoy to reach Pibor by road to deliver assistance,” Samantha Donkin an information officer with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AlertNet from Juba.
The humanitarian response in Jonglei State is one of the most challenging and expensive operations in the region since 2005.
Jonglei is largely inaccessible by road, forcing the United Nations to use helicopters to reach what the government has termed a “disaster zone”.
These can only transport a few tonnes of supplies, far less than is needed to help such large numbers of people. Due to limited food aid supplies in Pibor, aid agencies have been distributing two-week rations, rather than the usual monthly ones.
Some 20,000 people have returned to the town of Pibor, which is the hub of the humanitarian response, three weeks after it was attacked by a column of 6,000 to 8,000 armed Lou Nuer fighters.
The four IOM trucks are carrying household kits, including blankets, plastic sheeting, mosquito nets, jerry cans, soap and utensils, for 7,500 people.
“IOM is concerned by the condition of some of those affected who have emerged from hiding in the bush after spending three weeks without food, clean water, shelter and limited access to medical services,” it said in a statement.
The U.N. radio station, Radio Miraya, will broadcast messages informing people about distributions of food and household items and access to healthcare services, IOM said.
A second convoy carrying food and medical equipment also set off for Pibor on Friday on the two-day journey through swamps from the state capital Bor.
Donkin said the first convoy had been turned away at a checkpoint when it attempted to reach Pibor earlier this week.
South Sudan became Africa’s newest nation in July after a referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal with Sudan ended decades of civil war that had killed two million people.
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