300 British soldiers to tackle Sudan refugee crisis
HUNDREDS of British troops will deploy to South Sudan in the coming weeks as the Government tries to stave off the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.
Some 300 soldiers will be sent to the war-ravaged nation as part of an East Africa mission designed to tackle migration at its source.
They will be part of a UN peacekeeping operation in a country gripped by famine. It will be one of the largest deployments of UK troops across the globe.
Millions of pounds of aid money will also be poured into South Sudan this year to help save children.
The Daily Mail was granted access to a crisis clinic where starving toddlers were being treated after they were forced to flee massacres. They were saved from death by the International Rescue Committee.
Speaking from war-torn Ganyiel, aid workers from the IRC warned that without ‘urgent’ intervention there would be a ‘ catastrophic’ number of deaths.
Lieutenant Colonel Jason Ainley, the commanding officer in the country, said: ‘There is no doubt, this is a major deployment for the UK.’ Defence minister Mike Penning, who visited the region, said: ‘This mission aims to end destabilising conflict that is prompting migration.’
Some 1.6 million people have either been displaced or fled to neighbouring countries in the past eight months as a result of a famine and fighting. Those who have stayed are reliant on aid cash but it is running out. One of those currently seeing the benefits of UK aid money at the IRC clinic is Ton Biel, 27.
She was forced to flee her home in the middle of the night with her four children last November as tribesmen raided her village and shot dead her husband.
After wading for eight hours through marshland, Mrs Biel and her children, one-year-old twins Luelgok and Nyaboth, Nyak, four, and Nyareik, ten, arrived in Ganyiel.
She was taken in by the primary care centre after her emaciated twins nearly died on the journey.
Speaking about the incident, she said: ‘We heard shooting noises and we were scared and my husband told me to run and keep running with our children. We ran to the bushes and hid there. Then we came back and he was lying dead on the floor.’
She added: ‘It took us eight hours to get to Ganyiel. My children were ill, and I was struggling to produce enough milk because of my sorrow.’
Doctor Stacey Mearns, a health coordinator with the IRC’s emergency response team, said: ‘These people are on the brink of survival. The level of humanitarian suffering is overwhelming.
‘ Without urgent humanitarian intervention, there will be a catastrophic number of deaths.’
Britain has pledged £100 million out of its £12 billion foreign aid budget to South Sudan for this year.
Aid minister Priti Patel said: ‘Without concrete steps to end the violence by those in power more people will die long, slow painful deaths from the brutal famine.’
Help support people facing famine in East Africa. Text RESCUE to 80039 to give £3
‘He was lying dead on the floor’