Attacks on South Sudan health facilities, workers increasing

JUBA, South Sudan – A new report says that everyone and everything is a target in South Sudan's civil war, as attacks against health facilities and aid workers increase.

At least 50 medical institutions were attacked in 2016 and 2017, says the report released Monday by the New York-based Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict. In at least 750 incidents over the same period humanitarian access was denied by various armed groups, including government troops.

Both government and opposition forces have deliberately destroyed, burned, looted and occupied hospitals and clinics and detained, abducted and killed medical personnel and aid workers as a tactic of war, according to the report, based on more than 90 interviews and focusing on the Greater Upper Nile, Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria regions.