NAIROBI, May 19 (Reuters) – French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres on Tuesday accused South Sudan’s government of blocking humanitarian access to opposition-controlled areas and said all parties involved in an ongoing conflict in the impoverished country were exploiting aid for political and military ends.
Clashes between the military and fighters loyal to detained First Vice President Riek Machar’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO) party have surged since last year, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in opposition-controlled areas.
MSF said in a report that it had observed “a concerning trend of access blockages, recurring coercive letters and evacuation orders by the Government of South Sudan directed at civilians and humanitarian organisations in contested and SPLA-IO controlled locations.”
“At the same time, aid is being instrumentalised for military and political objectives by all parties to the conflict. Attempts to force NGOs to relocate aid to and from certain areas are depriving entire communities of life-saving assistance,” MSF said.
Calls to spokespeople for the army and the government were not answered. Reuters was not immediately able to reach the spokesperson for the SPLA-IO.
SURGE IN VIOLENCE
The medical charity also said that attacks on its facilities, including the bombing of two hospitals in May 2025 and in February this year, had led to around 762,000 people losing access to healthcare.
At the time of the February bombing, which struck a hospital in eastern Jonglei state, MSF said that South Sudanese government forces were the only armed party in the country with the capacity to perform aerial attacks.
The surge in violence — including reports of massacres of civilians by soldiers, opposition fighters and allied militias — prompted U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk to warn earlier this year that the country was at “a dangerous point”.
MSF said that it had treated more than 1,800 people affected by violence in January and February this year, the equivalent of nearly 30% of the total number of patients it saw last year. Patients were treated for various injuries from gunshots, blasts, sexual assaults, and other attacks, it said.
A 2018 peace deal in South Sudan ended a five-year civil war between forces allied with President Salva Kiir and those loyal to Machar that had left nearly 400,000 people dead.
Machar’s arrest last year raised fears that the country would once again be plunged into war. He and 20 others have been put on trial on charges including treason linked to militia raids in the northeast. All deny the charges.
(Reporting by Ammu Kannampilly; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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