SOUTH SUDAN / DEMINED HOSPITAL

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) cleared landmines at a health care centre in Lobonok, South Sudan for local residents to access medical service. UNMISS

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:29
• Production Date: 3 April 2018
• Asset Language: Arabic; English
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS MINE ACTION SERVICE - UNMAS; UNITED NATIONS MISSION IN SOUTH SUDAN – UNMISS
• Subject Topical: MINE CLEARANCE
• Geographic Subject: SOUTH SUDAN
• MAMS Id: 2121955
• Parent Id: 2121955
• Alternate Title: unifeed180403f

Description

STORY: SOUTH SUDAN / DEMINED HOSPITAL
TRT: 02:29
SOURCE: UNMISS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / ARABIC / NATS

DATELINE: 26 MARCH 2018, LOBONOK, SOUTH SUDAN

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, pan of health-care center grounds to show building of health-care facility
2. Wide shot, woman walking into health-care facility
3. Med shot, solitary wheel-chair
4. Close up, sign showing health care facility
5. Wide shot, polio vaccine patients waiting at facility
6. Med shot, women and children seated in queue
7. Various shots, woman breastfeeding child as she waits for children to be vaccinated
9. Wide shot, pan from health-care facility building to grounds
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Imelda Kiden Tombe, Patient:
“This place used to be full of mines even someone’s leg was cut here before, that is why we have taken long not walking along around here. Now I give thanks to God for bringing these de-miners to us.”
11. Wide shot, patient being registered by medical assistant
12. Close up, shot, medical assistant writing
13. Med shot, mother and her two children waiting as they are being registered
14. SOUDNBITE (Arabic) Oliver Modi, Medical Assistant at Lobonok Primary Health Care Facility:
“This organization has done for us good clearance, and there is nothing bad here. All of us working here are now happy. We can use the surrounding to farm and cultivate something that can help us in future.”
15. Wide shot, hospital grounds with people walking from afar
16. Various shots, women and children walking through hospital grounds
17. Wide shot, men walking through grounds
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Timothy Kirby, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS):
“As you can see today, it’s a day for polio vaccinations, and the local people are travelling over what was a dangerous area and we have been able to clear it, so they can get access to that medical facility.”
19. Wide shot, land and women at water point
20. Wide shot, people at water point

Storyline

This health care centre is now free of landmines and unexploded ordnance.

Years of conflict before the separation of Sudan and South Sudan, left vast grounds of the area around the health care center – the size of 70 soccer pitches – affected by mines.

Unbeknown to builders and hospital authorities, the construction of the hospital in Lobonok, some 90 kilometers south of South Sudan’s capital, Juba, progressed, and remained fully functional.

For six months after the discovery of several unexploded ordnances, patients needing urgent medical care had to stay away because unexploded ordnance were found in several areas around the hospital grounds.

However, since the mine clearance operation began, the health facility has become much more accessible to the local population.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Imelda Kiden Tombe, Patient:
“This place used to be full of mines even [someone’s] leg was cut here before, that is why we have taken long not walking along around here. Now I give thanks to God for bringing these de-miners to us.”

Services at the health-care center are now no longer restricted to those it was intended to serve.

SOUDNBITE (Arabic) Oliver Modi, Medical Assistant at Lobonok Primary Health Care Facility:
“This organization has done for us good clearance, and there is nothing bad here. All of us working here are now happy. We can use the surrounding to farm and cultivate something that can help us in future.”

Patients or others seeking access to the health facility are now able to walk across the cleared grounds, to reach the clinic.

SOUNDBITE (English) Timothy Kirby, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS):
“As you can see today, it’s a day for polio vaccinations, and the local people are travelling over what was a dangerous area and we have been able to clear it, so they can get access to that medical facility.”

For the United Nations Mine Action Service teams, it is achievements like these that have led them to destroying nearly 38,000 landmines, and over 941,000 unexploded ordnance all across South Sudan – in and around schools, hospitals and water points. So far, 187 schools, nearly a thousand water points, and 155 clinics, have been made safe since 2004.