(MENAFN- The Peninsula) An international medical aid agency evacuated staff from a town in South Sudan on Saturday as fighting escalated once again in the country's 16-month long civil war.
Doctors Without Borders said it was forced to pull its foreign staff out of Leer and halt all medical services amid fears the rebel-held town, in oil-rich Unity State, was about to come under "imminent attack" from government forces.
"Today, we withdraw again with a heavy heart, because we know how civilians will suffer when they are cut off from critical, lifesaving medical care," Paul Critchley, South Sudan chief for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, was quoted as saying in a statement.
MSF was previously forced to abandon Leer in January last year when fighting over the town made it too dangerous to stay. When aid workers were able to return four months later they found the hospital burned and looted and vehicles stolen.
"We hope that we do not see a repeat of what happened in January 2014 when fighting forced thousands of people - including our local staff who took along dozens of critically ill patients - to hide in the swamps with their families," said Critchley.
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday also warned in a statement that escalating fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar was forcing thousands of civilians to flee for their lives yet again.
"We remind all parties, in the strongest possible terms, of their obligations under International Humanitarian Law," said Franz Rauchenstein, the head of ICRC in South Sudan.
"At all times, those who do not take part in the hostilities must be spared and the distinction needs to be made between civilian objectives and military objectives," he said.
South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 and has been characterised by ethnic massacres, rape and attacks on civilians and medical facilities.
Peace talks in neighbouring Ethiopia have so far failed to reach any lasting agreement, or even an effective ceasefire.
On Friday the United Nations said that up to 100,000 people had been uprooted in the first week of May alone, following a marked spike in hostilities.
The civil war in South Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and forced over a million from their homes.
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