A cholera patient being administered oral rehydration solution under a tree in Akobo County. (Photo: CARE South Sudan).

JUBA, (Eye Radio) – Five children with cholera were among eight people who perished while on a three-hour difficult journey to seek medical treatment in Akobo County in Jonglei State, following the closure of their local health services over lack of funding, Save the Children revealed.

The UK-based charity said the minors from a remote part of Akobo, along with three adults, died last month while trekking from their village to seek treatment at the nearest remaining health facility in Akobo town.

The group walked in the blazing sun where temperatures reached as high as 40 degrees Celsius, and no access to clean water, shade or medicines, the organization said.

According to the aid group, early this year, the cholera victims would have had access to lifesaving treatment in one of the 27 health facilities that it established and supported to provide free, critical healthcare for conditions like malnutrition and cholera.

But due to the recent foreign aid freeze, such services are no longer available, with seven of these health facilities forced to shut completely, and the remaining 20 partially closed, it said.

Save the Children’s Country Director in South Sudan, Chris Nyamandi, suggested a “global moral outrage” over the aid cut, arguing the decisions made by powerful people in other countries have led to child deaths in just a matter of weeks.

“It is critical that the world wakes up to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in South Sudan – a country where four out of five people need aid to survive,” Nyamandi said.

“We must do everything in our power to prevent such deaths happening again. The first step is to make sure the current tensions in the country do not escalate further.”

Save the Children added that some of the health centers are only being run by volunteers, and there is no longer transportation to take severely ill people to the hospital in town.

It reported that cholera has been surging in Akobo County since mid-February, with 44% of reported cases in children aged 17 and younger.

“I am sick. My stomach is in pain and I cannot move. They said I can go to hospital in town, but I am weak and it is far,” said Sarah, a 24-year-old cholera patient in a remote part of Akobo.

“We used to be happy – there were many doctors and enough medicine. We did not suffer much. But we are now suffering. Sick people are being carried to hospital because they cannot walk for many hours.”

Floods have also devastated crops, and combined with conflict have led to families in Akobo County also living with critical levels of food insecurity and malnutrition – some of the worst in the country, the report said.

Save the Children staff said half the children they see in the clinics still operating across Akobo County are suffering from malnutrition – one of the biggest killers of children worldwide, which damages immune systems and leaves children more vulnerable to diseases like cholera.

It added that the escalating security situation characterized by military confrontations in Upper Nile State  further jeopardize humanitarian access in a country where 78% of the population is in need of aid.

“Since the cuts, the community is really suffering; we don’t have good medications. Before we had all medications for various diseases, and patients were treated on time; now we have no choice,” Micheal, a community health worker who volunteers at the health facility, told Save the Children.

“We see patients suffering, and we can’t help. We can only refer, knowing that it’s difficult for some patients to reach the hospital in town in time to be helped since it is almost three hours of walking.

Save the Children has worked in South Sudan since 1991, when it was part of Sudan. The child rights organization provides children with access to education, healthcare and nutritional support, and families with food security and livelihoods assistance.

South Sudan, which has faced multiple crises including disease outbreaks, conflicts and environmental shocks since gaining independence – has relied on foreign assistance for much of its health needs including the recent cholera outbreak that rattled the country.

However, in January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump suspended all foreign aids from his country and the U.S. Department of State sent ‘stop work’ orders to staff and contractors of USAID around the world.

Trump also signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from WHO, in a significant move that drew criticism from public health experts.

In South Sudan, WHO provides emergency supplies to hospitals and health facilities across the country in addition to bolstering health surveillance and response at the borders in times of major disease outbreaks.