Aid workers face unique crisis in South Sudan war, says ICRC
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s civil war presents humanitarian workers with “one of the unique crises” in the world, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.
“This is not a crisis which can be reduced to the conflict,” Peter Maurer told reporters in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. “This is also a crisis where the uncomfortable elements of poverty, of lack of development, of international pressures on the economy, pay an enormous toll.”
He described “a special crisis” in which even ICRC’s relief operations have had to be moved several times over the last three years in order to keep up with people fleeing violence. He said it was hard to move hospitals and other infrastructure to service a moving population.
Maurer said South Sudan’s “economic fragility, the inability of the state to pay salaries, has had so much impact” on the conflict, which started in December 2013 and has often been fought along ethnic lines.