Akuem displaced left vulnerable

Recently intensified fighting between the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and government forces had caused 1,300 people to flee to Akuem in recent weeks, MSF said. Before its evacuation, MSF ran a medical-nutritional programme in Akuem, assisting a population of some 20,000 and treating children suffering from severe malnutrition. Food insecurity was the “most serious problem in this region” and the only method to dispatch aid in southern Sudan was by air, the MSF statement said. The resurgence of hostilities “has caused population displacements in Bahr el Ghazal and the Western Upper Nile regions,” it added. Last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) asked the Sudanese government to provide additional security guarantees , after a bombing attack in the same area damaged one of its planes and a clinic.