South Sudan UN Refugee Camp Conditions "An Affront to Human Dignity"

Carrie Dedrick | Updated: Aug 08, 2014

South Sudan UN Refugee Camp Conditions "An Affront to Human Dignity"

Aid group Doctors Without Borders (DWB) has reported that refugees at a U.N. camp in South Sudan are living in treacherous conditions. DWB said people who have fled the violence of the civil war are now living in sewage-infested water up to their knees. 

Some adults are forced to sleep standing up in order to hold their children above the contaminants. DWB called the circumstances “an affront to human dignity.”

The camp, which was never intended to house South Sudanese refugees, is now sheltering 100,000 people. The civil war has forced over million people to flee their homes to escape the ethnically targeted violence, reports the AP. 

Human Rights Watch Africa director Daniel Bekele said, "The crimes against civilians in South Sudan over the past months, including ethnic killings, will resonate for decades. It is essential for both sides to end the cycle of violence against civilians immediately, and to acknowledge and support the need for justice."

It was previously reported that the U.N. Security Council named the South Sudan famine “the worst in the world” with 3.9 million people affected. The shortage of food is a result of the civil war, as farmers have been forced to abandon their crops to flee the violence. 

Publication date: August 8, 2014



South Sudan UN Refugee Camp Conditions "An Affront to Human Dignity"