Blog
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Displacement Occurring in Duk County
March 25, 2010
When the John Dau Foundation constructed the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in John Dau’s home village of Duk Payuel in March 2007, there were just a handful of people living there. In the three years since then, the population of both the immediate village and the entire county of Duk has grown immensely to more than 70,000 people.
Yet things are still not settled in Duk, evidenced by a recent report from the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. This report reveals that in the past year, 52,266 people were displaced within Duk County. This means that these people were forced from their lands due to violence, instability, draught, hunger, or other reasons outside of their control. Even though Duk is one of the smallest counties in the country, more people are being displaced from Duk than any other county in all of South Sudan. Duk was one of only two counties with more than 30,000 displaced persons in all of South Sudan, illustrating the huge need still present in John’s home village, more than two decades since he himself was forced from there.
Many of these people have resettled closer to the Clinic. The Clinic is considered a safe place since it treats all patients without regard to race, religion, tribe, or other factors and is well regarded by the community. Others are forced to move to a new place, leaving behind few possessions including food, and forced to literally rebuild in a new place. The Clinic works hard to reach these people through its routine outreach programs, which provide vaccinations to children and pregnant mothers, de-worming, trainings of community health workers, and education campaigns.
The Clinic operated continuously throughout 2009, and is the only reliably-operating health clinic for more than 100 miles. The assumption amongst the community and humanitarian agencies is that 2010 will not be any better. The need remains, though eased by the sustainable work of the Duk Lost Boys Clinic and the John Dau Foundation, pushing on in a place where others aren’t, and where the need is among the greatest.
