Medical centre in Bentiu area "systematically looted"

The entire village of Nimne in western Upper Nile (Unity State), including a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical centre, was "systematically looted" last week after troop movements had forced inhabitants to flee the village, according to the nongovernmental health agency. "This is a targeted act of violence against the community in Nimne," Arjan Hehenkamp, MSF head of mission for southern Sudan, said in a statement on Monday. "Now they have lost their food stocks, it's unclear whether the patients in our programme will be able to stay in Nimne - and there are not many safe alternative places to go in western Upper Nile these days," he added. The residents of Nimne, numbering between 1,000 and 1,500, were advised to leave on 2 February by representatives of the Relief Association of South Sudan (RASS), the humanitarian wing of the rebel Sudan People's Defence Force (SPDF), after "many soldiers" were seen heading towards the village, MSF told IRIN on 6 February. It was unclear whether the troops moving close to Nimne were loyal to Sudanese government or rebel forces, the agency stated. Families had been forced to run from their homes in fear of being killed, and had crossed cold, deep, crocodile-infested rivers through the night, the MSF statement said. On Thursday, 7 February, an MSF team returned to Nimne, situated some 25 km east of Bentiu, the capital of Unity (or Wahdah) State, to make an assessment of health and security. It found that personal possessions and food stocks had been taken from the homes of Nimne residents, and that the MSF medical centre had been looted, the agency said. "It was a complete shock for us to see the mindless destruction which was carried out," said Jan van't Land, project coordinator for the programme. "They took what was valuable, but they also deliberately damaged the laboratory equipment," he added. Nimne was also ransacked in July 2000 by troops of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), during a period when SPLA and SPDF forces in the area were in conflict, according to humanitarian sources. The SPDF leader, Riek Machar, and the head of the SPLM/A, John Garang, on 7 January announced a merger deal, designed to unite the two groups both politically and militarily. The oil-rich areas of western Upper Nile have seen fighting at various times between groups loyal to the Sudanese government in Khartoum, to the SPLM/A, and to the SPDF. Although recent reports suggested an escalation of fighting in the area, it was unclear which groups were involved in it, humanitarian sources said. "This population has already suffered several years of insecurity and is extremely vulnerable," Hehenkamp said. At the time of the evacuation, MSF ran a basic health care unit in Nimne, carrying out 1,700 to 2,000 consultations per month, and operating a treatment site for kala-azar - a potentially fatal tropical infectious disease of the liver and spleen - caring for 107 patients, the agency said. There had also been three cases of suspected meningitis, with one patient having died, while the other two had had their treatment disrupted as a result of the evacuation. "I hope that we can soon return to Nimne and resume treatment, particularly with the meningitis and kala-azar patients, as soon as security permits," said Jose Antonio Bastos, director of MSF operations for Sudan.