Side view of Mangateen IDPs Camp as of Monday, 29th May 2023. Photo Credit: Charles Wote/Eye Radio.

The Chairman of Mangateen Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Juba said the makeshift settlement is now bearing the burden of the Sudanese conflict, hosting over four thousand returnees.

Makuei Chien Jok said the civilians have lost everything and are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Mr. Jok said some of the returnees have come to stay with their relatives in the camp while others end up there because they have nowhere to settle.

“We have returnees from Khartoum and these returnees have nothing no shelters, plastic sheds, or nothing whenever,” Makuei told Eye Radio.

“The number of the households I have registered is five hundred seventy-seven and the total population of the returnees is four thousand and seventeen”.

The camp leader said they have no choice but to accommodate the displaced families with almost nothing.

“Anywhere a person comes to your house they might stay with you together with their family and there is not much accommodation on that.”

“Now do the food and shelters and some of them come for their relatives and some come and move around to search for a settlement area in the host community, and those who have no relative in the host communities they stay in the camp.”

Makuei narrated that the IDPs are now faced with a lack of food, shelter, and essential drugs at the local health facilities.

“The situation in the camp is not actually good because there is no food or drugs and when a person is sick it is difficult to get the person treated.”

“We have a health facility but there is no drug completely and we have no shelters all shelters were damaged because now currently you buy one plastic sheet with twenty-eight thousand pounds and a house needs four or three plastic sheets.

He adds: “A vulnerable person cannot manage to buy the plastic sheds for his or her house”.

The Mangateen camp was established in 2015 and hosts around 14 thousand internally displaced people who found refuge after the conflict in the country.