said Mineab Sebhatu, a doctor and medical coordinator for Sign of Hope. “The only food they’re getting is from organisations.”
“We’re in a swampy area. Malaria is high. We also have respiratory diseases, schistosomiasis, brucellosis, typhoid,” he said, counting off the many sicknesses that afflict local people who are more susceptible when malnourished.
Sebhatu said the clinic treated 58,000 patients last year, more than double the number in 2013, before the war began.
In front of the clinic, Mary Nyachak struggles to breastfeed her six-month-old son Malat.
“I do not produce enough milk, because I don’t have enough food,” she said.
“The last UN food I received was in October, but it has been finished a long time ago,” she said. “People are surviving by eating waterlily and guan roots,” another plant found in the swamps.
Fighting in and around the towns of Bentiu and Mayom in the oil fields to the north of Nyal triggered an exodus and many of those who fled have found refuge in the remote swamps, swelling an already-dependent local population.
Many have chosen safety over comfort, isolating themselves in the tall reeds and on the small islands that dot the marshlands.
“I lived in Mayom. When the war broke out we moved to this island, because we feared for our lives. Mayom was burned down, we did not have anywhere to stay,” said Mary Nyayena.
Surrounded by ragged children with swollen bellies, Nyayena and a neighbour were peeling the roots of water lilies which they grind by hand and mix with water to make an unsatisfying gruel that has been their daily meal, once a day, for the past year.
Nyayena has no nets to fish, and the food drops do not reach the islands. “Life here is very difficult,” she said.
Nor did she hold out any hope of an improvement anytime soon. “Peace is still not coming,” Nyayena said, “and maybe bad things will happen again.”
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