On Friday 8 May, an attack on the village of Torkej in the Upper Nile state of Sudan resulted in many wounded arriving at an MSF Hospital in Nasir. Patients reported many casualties and thousands have been forced to flee. Torkej is about 20km from Nasir where the MSF hospital provides basic health care, in-patient facilities and surgical care.
Since early Friday morning victims started arriving in the MSF hospital in Nasir. A total of 57 victims have made it to the hospital so far. The MSF surgeon immediately started treating gunshot wounds. By Sunday, an International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) mobile surgical team was able to fly in and assist. Many patients had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and will need follow-up surgery and care. One patient, a 15 year-old boy died in the hospital from severe cranial gunshot wounds. The vast majority of the victims are children and women.
Tribal raids between various groups across the states of Jonglei and the Upper Nile have escalated in recent months, resulting in hundreds of dead and thousands displaced. In Torkej in the early morning hours, attackers surrounded and raided the village. According to reports from local sources, at least 66 people have been killed, the majority of them children and women. Many families abandoned all their possessions as they fled.
Several thousand civilians have been displaced, with upwards of 1,000 already arriving in the outskirts of Nasir.
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MSF teams have been working in Sudan since 1978, providing emergency medical humanitarian assistance. In addition to frequent outbreaks of violence and attacks in the region, malnutrition is prevalent, maternal mortality rates remain among the highest in the world, tuberculosis and kala azar infections are chronic problems, and large-scale outbreaks of meningitis, measles, cholera, and malaria are common. Only 3 weeks ago, MSF teams responded to the needs of the wounded from violent clashes in Akobo.