26 MSF workers still unaccounted for in South Sudan after attacks

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More than two dozen Doctors Without Borders (MSF) workers remained unaccounted for in South Sudan a month after attacks on MSF facilities in Jonglei State, the medical charity said. MSF said it had lost contact with staff from two locations and that insecurity continued in the areas where they had been working.

MSF reported that “26 of 291 of our colleagues working in Lankien and Pieri remain unaccounted for,” in a statement issued Monday. MSF said it “have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity,” adding that the inability to communicate could be linked to limited network connectivity in much of the state.

The attacks that preceded the missing-workers report took place on Feb. 3 in Jonglei State, northeast of the capital, Juba. MSF said a hospital in the town of Lankien was bombed by government forces, while another medical facility in the town of Pieri was raided by “unknown assailants.” MSF said both facilities were located in opposition-held areas.

After the attacks, MSF said staff working at the two facilities fled alongside much of the local population into deeply rural areas. MSF said armed clashes and aerial bombardments were ongoing in those areas, further limiting the charity’s ability to locate colleagues and verify their status.

Violence in Jonglei has displaced large numbers of people in recent months. Since December, violence has displaced an estimated 280,000 people, with MSF describing conditions that drove staff into more remote areas. MSF said fighting escalated sharply in December when opposition forces captured a string of government outposts in north central Jonglei, and that in January the government responded with a counteroffensive that recaptured most of the area it had lost.

In Akobo, an opposition-held town near the Ethiopian border, displaced people described what MSF reported as horrific violence by government fighters, including difficulty finding food or water as they walked for days to reach safety. MSF said the attacks on its facilities were part of an uptick in violence aimed at humanitarian workers, supplies and infrastructure, according to aid groups.

MSF said facilities operated by the group have been attacked 10 times in the last 12 months. MSF head of mission in South Sudan, Yashovardhan—who the charity said uses one name—told reporters: “This violence has taken an unbearable toll not only on health care services, but on the very people who kept them running.”

Yashovardhan added: “Medical workers must never be targets,” and said MSF was “deeply concerned about what has happened to our colleagues and the communities we serve.”