South Sudanese are on Death Row
3 min readBy Mapuor Malual Manguen
On Saturday, June 21, Juba Monitor ran a story on its front page about the death of 87 victims of HIV/AIDS in Yei. Yei River County AIDS Coordinator who was quoted in the story revealed that since the beginning of this year, 2,914 people with HIV/AIDS have been registered, 896 of whom are currently on Anti-Retroviral drugs, 87 died and 291 defaulted treatments. The official blamed alarming infection rate on the lack of awareness, stigma and cultural practices like polygamy among the people.
But, who is supposed to conduct sensitization and awareness on this virulent disease? Should awareness also wait for final peace accord between Government and Riek Machar rebels? Should it wait for restructuring of governance system in South Sudan so that service delivery shall additionally address HIV preventive mechanisms? Indeed, it is true many citizens of this country are ignorant about existence of this killer disease or may have not been made to know about it. The media who are supposed to sensitize masses about this killer disease are giving too much airtime and space to proponents and opponents of federalism and ongoing peace process in Addis Ababa. This is being done to the extent of neglecting other serious problems affecting people in this country.
If 87 people could die in six months just in one county, how many victims are infected or have died of AIDS in other 71 counties in South Sudan? I believe the statistics could be worrisome. If these figures are added to numbers dying of cholera, malaria, typhoid, famine and victims of ongoing civil war, it means we are living in a country whose citizens are on the verge of extinction. In fact, the country is on typical death row because majority of citizens are exposed to dangers whose ends is death. Call it malaria, AIDS, famine, flood, cholera, war blah, blah…
Despite all this, the noise is about federalism and representation in that overcrowded delegation in Sheraton Hotel to get IGAD per diem on the pretext of peace talks that had already cost $17 million with nothing other than empty speeches and snapshots for Al-Jazeera and BBC televisions. Nevertheless, South Sudanese are still waiting this messiah to come with mechanisms that will educate and sensitize those who deny the existence of AIDS to accept its reality so that we don’t lose other 87 South Sudanese lives again in the next six months in that border town of Yei. Equally, it is this messiah who will route out conmen and money launderers in Juba town and deregister their bogus companies which serve nothing than stealing resources of South Sudan.
The author is journalist, blogger, social and political commentator based in Juba. He can be reached at mapuormalual@yahoo.com or mapuormalual.wordpress.com
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