South Sudan

MSF team relocates to Mattar to care for refugees fleeing violence on the South Sudan-Ethiopia border

LONDON, 23 May 2025 / PRN Africa / -- As violence intensifies across the South Sudan-Ethiopia border, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to relocate our medical services from the border town of Burbeiye to Mattar, in Ethiopia. This move corresponds with a mass displacement of South Sudanese refugees, who had already fled to Burbeiye, a town sitting directly on the border, and are now fleeing from there to Mattar in Ethiopia. This latest displacement is in response to an escalation of fighting at the border and exchange of fire between the People’s Defence Forces and an opposition group. As of 12 May, most people fleeing Burbeiye had arrived in Mattar. Our staff are now on site to respond to a cholera outbreak and meet people’s urgent medical needs.

Over the past weeks, Ethiopia’s Gambella region has been experiencing a dual emergency. More people are becoming infected by an expanding cholera outbreak in Wanthoa Woreda, coupled with the huge influx of refugees arriving because of intense fighting in South Sudan’s Upper Nile and Jonglei states. In the weeks leading up to the displacement, MSF had treated over 1,200 cholera patients and provided more than 3,000 outpatient consultations on the Ethiopian side of Burbeiye.

The situation escalated when cross-border gunfire from South Sudanese forces injured several people in Burbeiye on 12 May. MSF received nine war-wounded patients, bringing the total number of injured cases seen in our facility in Burbeiye to 217 since the conflict escalated in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state in February.

“Burbeiye has become critically dangerous. With thousands of refugees fleeing in one night alone, it was clear we had to follow the people and the needs,” says Joshua Eckley, MSF head of mission for Ethiopia.

SOURCE Medecins Sans Frontieres?MSF?