Reports of violence in South Sudan are increasing dramatically, creating an ever-larger humanitarian crisis, one that already verges on the "catastrophic" according to several relief organizations on the ground.
More than 200,000 civilians have already been driven from their homes, and the chief UN humanitarian official for the region, Toby Lanzer, has declared that this number could reach 300,000 to 400,000 "in a matter of days" (Voice of America, January 2, 2014). Many of those who have fled, even if they have reached UN camps, are without clean water or food. Some 76,000 people, mainly women and children, have fled Bor and its environs for Awerial, thirty miles to the west in neighboring Lakes State. Conditions are appalling, as reported by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other aid groups (see below).
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