Children mortality remains high in southern Sudan – charity

Wednesday 9 January 2008.

January 8, 2008 (LONDON) — A British-based international charity, Save the Children, said today that rates of children mortality remain high in southern Sudan. It further warned that thousands of children are still facing death.

A four-year-old Sudanese boy collapses from hunger at a feeding centre run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in the village of Paliang, about 160 km northwest of the southern town of Rumbek, May 25, 2005. (Reuters).

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, three years ago, health care conditions for children reach crisis point. One in four children in Southern Sudan dies before the age of five, mainly from easily preventable diseases such as malaria or diarrhoea; said Save the Children.

It added that tens of thousands of families still have very limited access to basic healthcare, with just one trained doctor for every 100,000 people.

The 2005 peace agreement promised to direct proceeds from Sudan’s rich oil reserves to help rebuild the country’s destroyed health and education systems. Yet three years on, communities struggling to survive after the country’s 20 year civil war have seen little change.

The international charity called on southern Sudan government to commit more funding to building up education, health and protection services. Also it urged fundraisers to give more money and advice to the South Sudanese government to protect children.

In a report released at the end of last December, the UN’s children’s agency UNICEF said the number of children who die before their fifth birthday fell below 10 million in 2006, but much more still needed to be done.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report attributed the progress in children’s mortality rates largely to improvements in healthcare.

By comparison, an estimated 20 million children under five were dying every year at the beginning of the 1960s.

But UNICEF’s executive director, Ann Veneman, pointed out that "much more must be done" and "if we do so, we can help create a better world for girls and boys, and for generations to come."

The study also found an appalling lack of basic sanitation, hygiene and drinkable water, which contributes to the deaths of more than 1.5 million children each year from diarrhea and related ailments.

(ST)