With results of Southern Sudan’s referendum on independence expected next month, its people look to rebuilding after years of conflict. UNICEF has been taking an active role in improving child survival.

It is nearly daybreak outside Juba's El Shabbah Children’s Hospital, where a group of women with babies wait patiently to be let in. Soon after sunrise, their patience is rewarded as the hospital springs to life like a well-oiled machine.

But according to the manager of the facility, Dr. Justin Tongun Bruno, things have not always run so smoothly. "Just a few years ago, this whole place was ransacked," he says. "There was nothing here."

Juba, which had been a garrison town for troops of the northern Sudan Armed Forces, was deeply scarred by more than two decades of north-south civil war. Its health-care infrastructure was stripped to the bone.

Dr. Tongun and his team arrived soon after the peace accord that ended the war in 2005. They began the arduous task of rebuilding the hospital. Five years on – thanks to the hard work of the staff and aided by a variety of development organizations, including UNICEF – the situation has clearly changed.

"There are still many things that need to improve," says Dr. Tongun. "The electricity sometimes goes off, the beds are limited, but overall, things are so much better."

UNICEF work has been crucial to the development of the hospital and other health centres across the region.

“The aim is very clear,” says Dr. Romanus Mkerenga, head of UNICEF's Health and Nutrition Programme here. “At the moment, health indicators across the whole region are very bad. But we are going to be doing everything we can.”

UNICEF is working with non-governmental organizations and government partners to push forward a range of ‘jump-start’ programmes to get those health indicators moving in the right direction – everything from child mortality to immunization. Most of the indicators have already started to improve at El Shabbah hospital, which provides a range of services, including polio and measles vaccinations, de-worming tablets, vitamin A supplementation and breastfeeding promotion.

UNICEF has also worked with Southern Sudan's Ministry of Health, helping to draw up a new health policy and providing consultants and experts to expand specific areas of care.

More information
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