Health agency Medicines Sans Frontiers says malnutrition is increasing amongst children in the areas affected by the conflict in South Sudan.

The medical charity says they have admitted over 2,500 severely malnourished children in their facilities in Upper Nile, Unity and Jonglei states.

“We have 24-hour care for those who need to be fed with specially milk formula every 3 hours, and we are using more than 800 kilograms of therapeutic food every day,” said Sarah Maynard, MSF’s project coordinator in Leer County.

Madam Maynard said they admit over 1,300 patients in their facilities every week.

Yesterday, MSF lunched a report on violence against healthcare in South Sudan.

“Patients have been shot in their beds, medical and humanitarian staff have been killed, and hospitals, ambulances and medical equipment have been burnt, looted and otherwise destroyed,” MSF said in a report entitled South Sudan Conflict: Violence Against Healthcare.

25 of the people killed in attacks on hospitals were patients, 27 were people seeking shelter in the hospitals, two of them were ministry of health staff and 4 were unidentified people, according to the report.