NAIROBI, Kenya — Nine children are dying every day from preventable illnesses like diarrheain an overcrowded, swampy refugee camp inSouth Sudan, and United Nations officials said Friday that they were stepping up efforts to evacuate people as fast as they could.
Heavy rains, overflowing latrines and a ceaseless influx of sick and hungry people have conspired to create an epidemiological disaster at the Jamam refugee camp, with death rates now nearly twice the emergency level, said the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
“The situation is getting worse by the day,” said Tara Newell, an emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, who spoke by satellite phone from the camp on Friday evening. “We’re arriving in the middle of the rainy season, tents keep falling down, children have to wear wet clothes, there’s malaria, and we see children getting sicker and sicker.”
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