Médecins Sans Frontières: Pakistani medic applies balm on Sudan’s war

Gul Badshah is used to rapidly changing scenarios. He was born 33 years ago in the Battagram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of the areas in the north of Pakistan that was hit by the devastating earthquake that claimed around 75,000 lives in 2005. From this dramatic experience he got the inspiration to help other people in need and joined the medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Today, after some stints in Pakistan and Uzbekistan, he works thousands of kilometres away from home, in the town of Lankien, situated in the South Sudanese state of Jonglei, which has witnessed some of the most violent episodes of the conflict that has ravaged the African country during the last five decades.

Pakistan and South Sudan may have little in common, but both share a volatile scenario that often traps the population. As a logistician of MSF Gul aims to guarantee that everything is in place at the healthcare unit in Lankien. But things are not easy. The country has very few paved roads and access, when not extremely difficult, can also be very dangerous.

“We have patients that are walking long distances of almost three to four days to arrive at the health facility to be treated. There are also inter-tribe, sub-clan fights and cattle raids. This creates very harsh and difficult living conditions for the patients and staff. MSF runs at the moment the only health care system in the area” he says.

Last December a rift between the President Salva Kiir and the Vice President Riek Machar led to armed clashes that have displaced more than 850,000 people so far. Although there is currently a ceasefire agreement between both sides, the row has revived historical ethnic tensions in an extremely fragile country that came to light only in 2011.

“The sudden outbreak of civil war created an important need in Lankien. We had to react quickly. We treated many war wounded patients and did 170 surgical operations” Gul says. “Due to the security environment our movements are very limited. Usually there is shooting going around in the area and most of the time we have to stay in our safe room”.


A hostile context

And the violence is not the only constraint. The weather also plays a role hampering the humanitarian activities in the area. Temperatures can be very high during the dry season –as much as they are in parts of Pakistan- and in the rainy season, which is about to start in a few months, South Sudan’s enormous plains become muddy and transportation is basically done by air.

“Our medical and logistical supplies can only reach the project by plane. We get a ton of supplies every ten days for a hospital with more than 100 beds”. Apart from war wounded victims, MSF runs programs in Lankien to treat patients with diseases like Kala azar, malaria, malnutrition, HIV/aids, tuberculosis or measles. The project in this growing town has been running already since the mid 1990s.

Every day early in the morning, Gul holds a meeting and, often, shortly afterwards, he has to rush to the airstrip to receive a plane coming with cargo and passengers from the Kenyan town of Lokichoggio, where most of the supplies are flown from. “We have to clear the airstrip by taking out the kids and animals like cows and goats to enable the landing”.

The hectic working days do not make him forget his family is far away.

“We don’t have any landline or mobile networks, so I can only contact my family through Internet which is not reliable all the times. I also miss my social life in Pakistan, as we are in an isolated place with just a few colleagues and we are not allowed to go out of our compound because of security concerns”. His 7-year-old daughter and four-year-old son keep asking him to go home, something Gul only manages to do every four to six months due to a life committed to help others.

MSF is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF offers assistance to people based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. We have been working in South Sudan for the last 30 years and currently run 14 projects in nine out of ten states.

In Pakistan MSF has been working since 1986 and operates several projects in the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the help of over 1,400 local and international staff.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2014.