By Taban Henry
Communities of Dollo Payam in Juba County of Central Equatoria State are in dire situation due to lack of medical services rendered to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the area.
This was revealed on Saturday after the Central Equatoria State Advisor for Gender Child and Social Welfare Mariam Aguli Zacharia paid a visit to the IDPs camp in Sirimon of Dollo Payam in order to acquaint herself with the challenges faced by the IDPS who fled their area.
Speaking during the visit of the State Gender Advisor Michael Pitia Elkano the Chief of Gumbiri Boma said they camped at the area because of conflict. He added that their village was completely destroyed thus they are now faced by lack of medical services.
He said they fled to the area since January and since then they have been faced with serious hunger citing that they only survive on the food contributed by both the community and the church adding that in March the only organization that offered support was the South Sudan Red Cross.
“We have a lot of diseases and there is no medical services not until people regretted that they should go back to their areas in order to go and die there, they came here in order for the government to help them till then the government have not brought any support” he said.
Pitia added that over 6,773 people fled from over four villages that is to say Magiri, Toliang, Roja and Gumbiri citing that what forced them to flee was because of unknown gunmen and the cattle keepers who are always in military uniform of which they don’t know whether they are from the government, sometimes they move bare footed.
“The cattle keepers are the very people who have made destruction to our area, bringing to us poverty up to now, they did destruction burning houses taking away all our goats and other crops like cassava that we planted. Before the military base was brought here in Sirimon those cattle keepers and the unknown gunmen could follow us grabbing our goats and other food items” he said.
Pitia stated that since their arrival the host community were the only people trying to help them and their community members from Juba who could contribute food as well as the church that did their best and finally the Red Cross.
He further stated that they are feeding on vegetables because of the rain adding those whose homes were not being destroyed could go and get cassava that we are eating here.
“Many people are thinking of migrating to Juba if the situation continues to be like that because even the government has forgotten them,” he stated.
Meanwhile Peter Modi Emmanuel, the Dollo Payam Director is calling on the government to bring peace so that people could return to their villages.
He mentioned that since 2005 their area has never rested, every time conflict, this area is near Juba but its seen as the last place because of insecurity, now our citizens especially women are facing health related problems, in the last few days pregnant women died during birth the diseases whether being malaria or there is no monitoring we now don’t know.
“We wanted our government to send for us a doctor in order to come and see what the problem is leaving our women to die like that. Children are facing a lot of diseases such as nodding disease when someone wants to eat he falls at the end of the day he will end up not eating the food another problem is river blindness is the most diseases facing our people here in Dollo payam” he added.