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When the rainy season begins thousands of refugees in South Sudan will get sick and suffer due to inadequate shelter, leading to a humanitarian crisis that could have been prevented with a flexible donor cycle and prepositioning by the international donors and UNHCR.
For a long time, the sun has been shining relentlessly on the more than 195.000 Sudanese refugees, who have fled to neighbouring South Sudan since fall 2011. Now, the first rain has hit and soon the picture of the hot, dry refugee camps will change as the rainy season sets in and water will start pouring down, temperatures will drop dramatically and refugees living in torn tents or inadequate huts of grass will fall sick from waterborne or respiratory diseases.
“This crisis is predictable and everybody involved with the humanitarian response in South Sudan has been aware that a large percentage of the refugees would need tents, plastic sheetings and blankets in preparation for the rainy season,” says Andreas Kamm, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council, who has just been to South Sudan.
The refugee camps are situated close to the Sudanese border – close to home for the refugees, but far away in terms of resources needed to cope. When the rainy season sets in the roads will close due to flooding and the mud and trucking will be impossible.
“What it most needed can be flown in, but that is the most expensive solution and come October there will be no money left. The result being that fewer refugees get the necessary help,” says Andreas Kamm, explaining how the needs should have been defined between June and October last year, in time to put out a tender, and then order the goods to start trucking in January.
“In reality donors often do not confirm how they will spend money till February or March, and by then it is too late. The donor cycle for funding simply isn’t matching the needs of this emergency,” says Andreas Kamm, who has raised the problem with UNHCR in South Sudan and the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Christian Friis Bach.
DRC has been working in South Sudan since 2005. DRC and its mine action unit, DDG, provide emergency assistance, food security and livelihoods, mine action, armed violence reduction and community driven development. DRC holds the responsibility for three refugee camps housing more than 83.000 Sudanese refugees and is a co-coordinator with UNHCR, supporting the coordination of the refugee response in South Sudan.
