By Halima Athumani
YUMBE, Uganda
Anytime you go to the Bidibidi refugee settlement in Yumbe district, located some 525 kilometers (some 326 miles) from the capital Kampala, you’ll find frantic mothers like Grace Tazee, who are desperate to save their babies from malnutrition.
Tazee, who is just 26-years-old, had escaped a war in South Sudan, but despite being in the safe confines of northern Uganda, she still paces back and forth as she rocks and pats her two-and-a-half month old baby on her back.
Her daughter, who continues to let out a small but loud painful cry non-stop, is hungry and has been restless for a couple of days now.
“I have not refused to feed the baby, every time I give her breast milk to suck, nothing comes out, she starts crying and I also cry,” she explained as she wiped her tears dry with the baby’s shawl, leaving white lines on her face.
Tazee is one of the 90,000 South Sudanese who have sought refuge in Uganda since July 7 from the war in South Sudan, which has been consumed by a brutal cycle of violence that has so far claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and displaced 2.4 million from their homes.
A power-sharing unity government seeking to end almost three years of civil war characterized by human rights abuses and atrocities was put in place this April between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and ex-rebel leader Riek Machar, before fighting flared anew in July and Machar fled the country.
Malnutrition among children
At the Bidibidi health center, 683 children suffer from malnutrition. Out of these, 23 are severely malnourished, including Tazee’s baby.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency through a translator, Tazee, who was given porridge flour upon arrival and admission of her daughter, said: “How can I take porridge when my baby is not feeding on anything? I need milk and if there is no milk, there’s feeding flour for the baby which they should give her.”
Due to poor hygiene at the camp and inadequate clean water, health workers at the Bidibidi clinic have asked all mothers with babies below six months not to use any feeding bottle.
Boona Rachel, a health worker, cautioned Tazee, urging her to use a spoon and a cup instead. “This baby will develop diarrhea and suffer more, right now the baby is just crying of hunger, what happens if the baby is crying of hunger and diarrhea?” Rachel told her.
According to the health worker, the flour being given to other babies was a supplementary food since they were above six months. Chandiru Irene, another social worker, said: “A few minutes back, she [Tazee] walked into our room and threw the cup at us, saying she won’t use it.”
“I will not take this porridge unless something is given to my baby, if she died I will throw the body in the bush,” Tazee cried out as tears uncontrollably rolled down her cheeks.
Deaths during childbirth
At the refugee settlement health unit, mothers sit on their babies’ bed sides closely monitoring their situation as health workers also keep checks on them.
In one of the tents set up by the UN High Commission for Refugees, a grandmother with her ailing three-weeks-old twin grandchildren were found fighting for their lives.
Eva Juma, 59, from Keji Keji in Yei, South Sudan, told Anadolu Agency that in the first week of August, she had called Sumbua Kulthum, her late daughter, who was due to give birth. “I told her, I told her to come and stay with me so I can help her during delivery. But she told me she wanted to go and harvest her food from the garden,” Juma said.
Juma said until August her Kale Village in her country, where her daughter Kulthum lived with her husband, had been peaceful until armed groups started killing people there. “I again asked her to leave but she insisted she would not run away without food to keep her going on the way to Uganda.”
Three days later, Kulthum got labor pains and Juma’s son-in-law called her help. “I was in the market and knew I would not make it on time so I told him to get a motorcycle and take her to the clinic.”
Unfortunately, Kulthum’s husband delayed the trip. Juma recalled: “The first baby was born around midnight and there was no help, around 4 a.m. she gave birth to the second baby, but in between she bled a lot.”
Juma added: “By morning, her placenta was still inside, when her husband found her, she was gasping for breath, he rushed her to the health center but when they got to the door, she died.”
Babies battling diarrhea
According to Rachel, the severely malnourished twins weigh just 1.8 kilograms (3.96) and 1.7 kilograms (3.75 pounds) instead of 2.5 kilograms (5.5 pounds) considered normal for a baby that age.
“One of the twins has diarrhea and their grandmother insists it’s because of the change in milk, but we associate it with hygiene, so we are giving them therapeutic milk,” she said.
Juma is aware she has to eventually leave the clean tent at the health unit. What awaits her will be a yet to be identified 30 by 30 square meters of land out of the 250 square miles (647.5 square kilometers) of land set aside by the Ugandan government in Yumbe for the refugees to settle in.
The grandmother worries about the health of the twins every day. “[I] am afraid of disease, people move through the night and I have seen some pass stool [feces] right where we hang clothes, [I] am afraid flies will spread disease to us, if I fall sick, no one will take care of these children.”
EU delegation’s visit
On Friday, head of the European Union delegation Kristian Schmidt and ambassadors from Japan, the U.S. and Norway had visited the Bidibidi refugee settlement, where 38,000 people live, to assess the situation of refugees.
After a tour of the settlement, Schmidt said: “It is sad to say that the situation in South Sudan gives no reason for hope, there is a likelihood that more people will come and those who are here will stay for a long time.
“How I wish the leaders of South Sudan were here to look into the eyes of their people and know they have lost faith in their leaders.”
