Report: 2,000 killed this year as humanitarian crisis worsens in south Sudan

Report: 2,000 killed in 2009 south Sudan violence

NAIROBI,Kenya — Officials from an international medical group say more than 2,000 people have died and 250,000 have fled their homes this year because of fighting in southern Sudan.

Officials from Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, say the violence is the worst seen in the south since the 2005 peace deal with the country’s north that ended two decades of civil war.

MSF director of operations in Sudan, Stephan Goetebghebuer, says unlike previous years, the clashes are more frequent and women and children are targeted.

Karla Bil, MSF’s medical coordinator in Sudan, says 75 percent of the population in southern Sudan does not have access to basic health care exposing them to deadly diseases.