Hossen Sohel: An estimated 383,000 people have died as a result of South Sudan’s civil war, according to a new report that documents the extraordinary scale of devastation after five years of fighting in the world’s youngest country, reports New York Times.
The report, published by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and financed by the State Department, revealed that about half the dead were killed in fighting between ethnic rivals as it spread across the country, and the other half died from disease, hunger and other causes exacerbated by the conflict.
The number far surpasses earlier estimates from the United Nations and brings into focus the tragedy of a conflict that has received little global attention.
The researchers behind the report hope it will be instrumental in understanding the conflict and strengthening humanitarian responses.
“We hope that these kind of findings create even more urgency to actually making sure that the current peace deal is solid and is adhered to,” said Francesco Checchi, the lead epidemiologist involved in the report.
While the numbers represent a stark increase from previous estimates, Checchi said the toll could well be higher.
The figure is the only comprehensive estimate of the death toll after nearly five years of war. There have been efforts to calculate the human cost on a community level over the years, with dozens of humanitarian groups conducting small-scale surveys.
The researchers whose report was released Wednesday attempted to calculate the death toll from the beginning of the conflict in December 2013 until April 2018. Using population statistics and growth projections, and factoring in the intensity of the fighting, displacement, disease, access to health care and more, the epidemiologists produced a model that enabled them to estimate deaths month by month and county by county.