By Deng Machol
Renk, South Sudan – thousands of refugees, returnees who escaped war-ravaged Sudan are tormented by hunger and lack of basic needs amid humanitarian organizations are running short of funds to be able to deal with this crisis at the transit centers in Renk county’s Upper Nile State.
The plight of the returnees and refugees are “ever worsening” with many struggling to access necessities such as food, shelter, and medical care.
“The life is extremely difficult,” Sarah Akol, a South Sudanese returnee and a mother of three children told the Pan African Visions, under a makeshift tent, cradles her baby girl at Renk’s new transit site.
With her unpleased smiling, she said they were quiet – and lucky to escape a deadly violence but again they are battling starvation.
The UN transit camps were established to host the returnee/refugee for the two weeks before proceedings his/her final destination.On arrival in the transit centers, they are given 16, 000 South Sudanese pounds ($14) by the UN food agency.
Renk, 40km (25 miles) south of the border with Sudan is the one of the remote parts of South Sudan, with lack of water and sanitation and shelters, where the UN agencies established two transit sites/camps to host the influx of frightened civilians – both returnees and refugees’ fleeing for their lives from Sudan’s bloodshed since April 2023 violence between rival warlords.
However, the transit sites are dangerously overcrowded, with nearly 15,000 people living in the area meant to host at least 3,000 people in dire need of assistance.
At least 600,000 people have crossed the border to South Sudan since the conflict erupted in the restive Sudan, whom around 80 percent are South Sudanese returning to their country of origin.
The UN agencies say about 1,500 people entered South Sudan every day at the Joda – border, exhausted, traumatized, and hungry, with little hope as they came from the parts of Sudan that have been cut off from food and other essential supplies. At the transit camps, many have no planned and clear destination – and spend weeks or months in and around the transit centers, struggling to survive with a scarcity of humanitarian aid.
As the rainy season looms, it brings more dangers, said Ramkel Jok Deng, a community leader at the new transit center, adding that many people are living under an open-sided concrete shelter, and some are living in the open field without shelter for a month.
Both government authorities and humanitarian agencies have been hesitant to set up a permanent camp – the rows of bright white tents set up by the UN Refugee Agency, easily seen from the Renk center.
Save the Children is one of the Relief agencies currently responding to the surge of Sudanese refugees and returnees in Renk especially in the area of child protection, among others.
“We are in a situation where the needs are enormous,” Inge Ashing, the charity’s CEO of Save the Children told PAV in Renk.
Ashing, who visited Renk to witness the first-hand situation and challenges facing the returnees and refugees, says 75% of the population the populations needs humanitarian assistance.
She further appealed to the international community to double its efforts to support thousands of refugees in South Sudan.
“Everyone needs to put their attention on South Sudan to ensure that they respond to the needs here in Renk and also in the whole country,” Ashing said.
Ashing also added that Save the Children will support the education programs.
“When I speak to children, they ask for education because they want to create a future, they want to have hopes and they want to be part of a positive solution for South Sudan and we as the organization need to support that everywhere we can,” Ashing said.
In the aftermath of Sudan’s conflict, Save the Children has been able to help patients, providing Scio social support and case management to children at Renk’s transit centers.
Children’s Relief is also providing recreational activities for hundreds of children to try to forget some of the horrible experiences they witnessed on their perilous journey.
South Sudan endured years of civil war that ended in a peace deal in 2018 and is currently experiencing communal violence and climate change that has displaced thousands internally, which created a hideous humanitarian crisis in the world’s youngest nation.
