26 Medical Personnel are Missing in South Sudan Following Attacks

Fighting escalated sharply in December, when opposition forces captured a string of government outposts in north central Jonglei. In January, the government responded with a counteroffensive that recaptured most of the area it had lost.
A month after attacks in South Sudan, more than two dozen Doctors Without Borders employees are still missing, according to the medical charity.

In Jonglei State, northeast of the capital, Juba, where fighting has displaced an estimated 280,000 people since December, two facilities run by the organization, which goes by the French abbreviation MSF, were assaulted on February 3.

According to MSF, government forces bombed a hospital in the village of Lankien, while “unknown assailants” stormed another medical institution in the town of Pieri. Both were situated in territories controlled by the opposition.

Employees at the two sites, together with a large portion of the local populace, withdrew into extremely remote areas where aerial bombardments and violent conflicts were still going on. 26 of 291 of our colleagues working in Lankien and Pieri remain unaccounted for,” MSF stated in a statement on Monday.

It stated, “We have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity.”According to the statement, when opposition troops took control of several government outposts in north central Jonglei in December, the fighting intensified dramatically. The government launched a counteroffensive in January, regaining the majority of the lost territory.

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