04 Mar 16 28 Nov 16

South Sudan: Medical crisis looms following Pibor violence

When heavy fighting broke out and bullets started flying around the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical centre in Pibor, South Sudan, Dr. Marisel Mendez was treating a two-year-old boy in the pediatric ward, a concrete room with six hospital beds and cartoon drawings on the walls to make it a welcoming space for children.


As the sound of gunshots grew closer and closer, Marisel saw staff and patients beginning to run towards the designated safe area of the MSF compound.



Evacuation from the medical centre

With the increasing sound of heavy weaponry, the MSF team moved out to the UN base on the other side of town.




Fighting continued in Pibor for three days, from February 23rd to the 25th. Thirty-five other patients wounded in the fighting all survived.

But as Marisel and the other MSF nurses, midwives and logisticians were scrambling to provide life-saving care, the MSF medical centre that has served the community for over 10 years was being ransacked and looted to the point of being totally unuseable.

Conditions in the UN compound


They have only one latrine for every 350 people, less than 1.5 liters of water per person per day and no food distributions. But people stay here out of fear, and for some, because they know they have nothing left at home.

“All I was able to take with me was one jerry can,” says Mary, sitting in the waiting area of the MSF clinic that was hastily set up to provide a basic medical environment.



Marketplace destroyed




In spite of the hardship, there are still moments of celebration. For Marisel, those moments come especially when she is reunited with patients who were under her care at the MSF healthcare centre when the fighting started.




Read the latest news from MSF in South Sudan