Mass killings, rape, torture, abductions and forced cannibalism have led to an increase in mental illness in South Sudan, with patients routinely housed in prisons due to an “almost total” absence of mental healthcare, a rights group said yesterday.
There are only two practicing psychiatrists for South Sudan’s 11 million people, Amnesty International said in a report ahead of the nation’s fifth anniversary of independence on Saturday.
“My mind is not good,” the report quoted one man, Phillip, as saying as he described being forced to eat the flesh of dead men rounded up and shot in a security forces building in the capital, Juba, when conflict broke out in December 2013.
Photo: AFP
“They found me, tied my arms behind my back and forced me at gunpoint to drink blood and eat flesh... At night when I sleep, those who were killed come back in my nightmares,” he said.
More than 10,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced since fighting erupted between forces loyal to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar.
Clashes have continued even though warring factions signed a peace deal in August last year, with 200,000 people still sheltering in UN military bases across the country.
There are no official statistics on mental health in the country, but the director of the department of mental health told Amnesty that the number of patients with mental health problems has risen since 2013.
Most of the 82 inmates categorized as mentally ill in Juba Central Prison in May did not have a criminal file, the report said.
The majority of displaced people surveyed in a UN base in the northern town of Malakal exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a study last year found.
PTSD is a severely debilitating condition in which patients re-
experience horrific traumas from the past in forms of intrusive memories, flashbacks and nightmares.
Lual, another man quoted in the report, said he felt suicidal after security officers forced him to disembowel corpses in detention in Juba in 2014.
“Whenever they would kill people, we would be taken to dissect the stomachs of those who were killed, so they could be thrown into the river and wouldn’t float,” he was quoted as saying.
“I dream that I am still in jail. I am haunted by the cutting of the stomachs... I hate myself,” he said.
Of the 161 displaced people interviewed by Amnesty, several knew of others who had attempted or committed suicide.
One mother in a displaced camp, Nyayang, whose soldier husband had disappeared, used to beat her children and tried to kill herself three times by drinking poison, the report said. She eventually disappeared, leaving her children behind.
Poor mental health can contribute to violent behaviour in the home, community and nationally, experts say.
Many interviewees said they could not eat or sleep and felt angry, anxious or irritable. They also struggled to concentrate or remember things, making it difficult to carry out every day tasks like cooking.
“Doing more to address mental health needs is not only essential for individuals’ wellbeing, it is also critical for South Sudanese to effectively rebuild their communities and country,” Amnesty International regional director Muthoni Wanyeki said in a statement.
Healthcare services in South Sudan have been predominantly funded by charities since independence in 2011.
Humanitarians have received just more than one quarter of the US$1.29 billion requested for this year, the UN says.
Hunger is at its highest level since the conflict began, with up to 4.8 million people facing severe food shortages in coming months, the UN says.
Many people have been uprooted by fighting multiple times, most recently in the northwestern town of Wau on June 24, when tens of thousands were forced to flee and 43 killed.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of