
(AGENPARL) – ven 17 gennaio 2025 Logo ICRC EN.jpg International Committee of the Red Cross
** South Sudan: ICRC’s mobile surgical team in Renk treats more than 230 weapon-wounded patients in just one month
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ICRC – News Release
17 January 2025
Geneva / Juba (ICRC) – A surgical team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been deployed to Renk in Upper Nile State, South Sudan, to treat an influx of weapon-wounded patients seeking safety and medical care after fleeing fighting in neighboring Sudan.
Since early December 2024, more than 120,000 people have fled the ongoing violence in Blue Nile, White Nile, and Sennar states in Sudan, to South Sudan. Dozens of them, wounded by the violence, required urgent medical care by ICRC doctors.
“Our mobile surgical team has already carried out more than 250 surgeries since 8 December, and there are currently 70 weapon-wounded inpatients in the hospital, after a peak at more than 100”, said Florence Gillette, ICRC head of delegation in Juba. “Under international humanitarian law and human rights law, all persons who are sick or injured must be protected. They must also have access to essential health services without discrimination.”
To handle the flow of patients, the ICRC is working together with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who provides post-operative care at the Renk county Hospital.
The ongoing influx of Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese returnees is straining resources throughout Renk communities. This is particularly worrying as South Sudan continues to face a cholera outbreak with more than 20,000 cases recorded in the country so far.
To help reduce the risk of cholera outbreaks, the ICRC supports the South Sudanese Red Cross (SSRC) as they work to supply safe drinking water and promote good hygiene practices to raise awareness about cholera.
The ICRC also monitors the cholera outbreaks in prisons and provides hygiene items and chorine tablets to places of detention.
“The conflict in neighboring Sudan is having a direct impact in Renk, particularly on vulnerable communities. Combined with the cholera outbreak, we are now facing a critical situation without the necessary means to provide humanitarian assistance to all”, Gillette says
In 2024, the ICRC provided vital support to thousands in South Sudan, offering health care, emergency aid, rehabilitation services for people with disabilities, infrastructure repairs, and worked to help rebuild livelihoods of affected populations, as well as protect dignity by reuniting families, locating missing persons, and improving conditions for detainees.
About the ICRC
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a neutral, impartial and independent organization with an exclusively humanitarian mandate that stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It helps people around the world affected by armed conflict and other violence, doing everything it can to protect their lives and dignity and to relieve their suffering, often alongside its Red Cross and Red Crescent partners.
** For more information, please contact:
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Public Relations Unit | International Committee of the Red Cross | 19, avenue de la Paix | 1202 Geneva | Switzerland
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ICRC, Avenue de la Paix, 19, Geneva, . 1201 Switzerland