Nasir, Sudan: There hardly any roads in southern Sudan - almost everything is transported by aircraft. In the Upper Nile state of southern Sudan, MSF maintains a number of projects focusing on primary healthcare. Because of a desperate shortage of infrastructure, reaching much of the region, especially in the rainy season, is particularly onerous and few NGOs are present on the ground. In the Upper Sobat, MSF runs a hospital in the former garrison town of Nasir and four outreach clinics in the northern Upper Nile area, accessible only by boat or air.
Three years after a decades-long civil war between the north and south of Sudan has ended, the population of southern Sudan is still struggling for survival, dying from preventable and curable diseases, and facing outbreaks on regular basis. Maternal mortality rates are amongst the highest in the world and poverty-related diseases such as measles, malaria, tuberculosis and kala azar remain major killers.
The international community has shifted its attention away from humanitarian assistance and towards early recovery and development programmes. But this does not match the reality on the ground. There are still outbreaks of violence and disease requiring emergency interventions.
Development will take time, particularly in the context of southern Sudan. In the meantime, a young Ministry of Health and the few remaining humanitarian organisations are shouldering an impossible burden.
MSF has been working in southern Sudan since 1983 and today the medical humanitarian organization is one of the few that remain to provide healthcare to a population still in great need.
