A Mission to One of the Most Devastated Places in the World

By Josh Skaggs, MD   I went on a medical mission to East Africa’s South Sudan this past January and February. The country is one of the most undeveloped, isolated, and devastated places in the world, and it was an amazing experience even though being there was incredibly tough.   South Sudan and Sudan used to be under the control of Egypt, and were overseen by Great Britain. Great Britain withdrew from Sudan, its former colony, in 1956. Sudan had two regions at that time, the Arab north and the tribal south. War broke out after the northern Sudanese government began killing all non-Arabs in the south who would not “convert” to Islam. The south subsequently formed an autonomous region to protect itself. Multiple wars continued through the decades until South Sudan seceded from the north and established its own country in 2011. Unfortunately, fighting still continues in the disputed border area between the north and south. Not only has civil war decimated this country, but Islamic militias known as Janjaweed, invading from neighboring Arab countries and deriving support from the northern Sudanese government, have killed hundreds of thousands of the indigenous black Africans in the Darfur region in the west. Various rebel groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) also have invaded from neighboring countries to take rob and enslave the local populace.   South Sudan is one of the least developed countries in the world because of decades of civil war and ongoing co...
Source: Going Global - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs