Fresh fighting has erupted in the town of Malakal between armed groups, and led to further displacement of about 900 people to the Protection of Civilian (PoC) site.
Two people have died and an unknown number of people injured, however, until now, MSF says its experiencing difficulty has not treated any wounded in the hospital at the PoC in Malakal.
Given the prevailing tension in the area, MSF says it’s currently preparing for a possible influx of wounded people.
Since the beginning of April, clashes have led to the displacement of around 4,600 people from Malakal to the PoC, pushing the total number of people living in the PoC to over 25,000.
This extra displacement further strains the already high number of people, already living with limited resources in the PoC.
At this moment the situation in Malakal town remains extremely volatile and it is expected that confrontations will continue in the coming hours.
MSF teams have today been forced to suspend some of its outreach activities to remote areas hosting internally displaced people.
MSF calls has called upon all parties to the conflict to respect and facilitate access of humanitarian assistance to the people affected by the South Sudanese conflict.
The South Sudanese army (SPLA) said Wednesday it was deploying more troops from those initially dispatched to different positions outside the state capital Malakal to contain the ongoing clashes
Major General Akuei Yak, commander of the SPLA’s division 7th in the area is quoted by several media sources as saying, “There is no problem. The situation is under control. We have received a go ahead from the general headquarters to deploy more forces from brigade 20 so that this situation is contained” .
The area division commander said it was not clear what sparked the clashes, stressing that the mission of deploying more forces to the town was to arrest the situation as the first priority.
