At least seven bombing in South Sudan Hospital: MSF | News

At least seven people were killed and another 20 injured in an attack on a city in South Sudan.

MSF said in the explanation that on Saturday “the intentional bombing of his hospital in Old Fangak had severely condemned and that the attack destroyed the last remaining functioning hospital and the pharmacy in the north of the country.

MSF initially pushed in an X post: “Stop the bomb attack. Protect the civilian population. Protect health care.” It is said that the attack is “a clear violation of international law”.

It was not immediately clear why the facility was targeted. According to the Associated Press news, a spokesman for the military of South Sudan could not be achieved for a comment.

🔴 Today the MSF Hospital in Old Fangak, South Sudan, was bombed.

The pharmacy was destroyed. All medical care lost. There are reports about people killed and injured.

This is the only functional hospital in the region.

Stop the bomb attack. Protect civilians. Protect health care. pic.twitter.com/2xvtev0slp

– MSF Südsudan (@msf_southsudan) May 3, 2025

Mamman Mustapha, head of the Mission at MSF in South Sudan, said from the capital Juba that his team on site “two helicopters -canon ships who attack the hospital”.

Mustapha said that the helicopters bombed the hospital and its medical care and then continued to accuse the city of Old Fangak.

“The civilian population has fled and the situation is quite terrible and catastrophic … We are pretty shocked. The hospital has been there for 10 years since 2014,” he added.

Another MSF declaration states: “The attack started around 4:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m.) when two helicopter cannon ships first dropped a bomb on the MSF pharmacy and burned them onto the floor and then fired on the city of the old fangak for about 30 minutes.

Hours later, additional attacks took place near a market in Old Fangak, which was widespread after several witnesses.

Fears of a new civil war

In the past few weeks, the United Nations has warned that the South Sudan, who has been plagued by instability since Sudan's independence in 2011, is about a new civil war.

The country has come into conflicts in recent months because a collapse of a power agreement between competing generals, President Salva Kiir and the first Vice President Riek Machar.

Kiir and Machar represent the two largest ethnic groups, Dinka and Nuer, who waged a civil war between 2013 and 2018, which cost around 400,000 lives before a 2018 peace agreement formed a government of national unity.

Now the tensions between Kiir and Machar have boiled again, the latter has been under house arrest since March due to alleged subversion.

Old Fangak, where the attack on the MSF Hospital took place, is one of several capitals in the Fangak district, the state of Jonglei, an ethnic part of the country that is historically connected to the SPLM-I.Open (SPLM-IO) from Machar.

Al Jazeera's Catherine Soi reported from Nairobi and said she spoke to the district of the district in Fangak, who directed the guilt for the government. The official, she said, was allied with the SPLM-IO.

This commissioner said Al Jazeera that “only the army has the ability to carry out such an attack”. “We also spoke to eyewitnesses who say that … the plane was a government plane,” said Soi.

“We also know that another MSF facility in this area was also attacked and looted two weeks ago, so let's wait for the government official to give its version of history,” she said.

Last month, an army base was looted by armed men in the northern city of Nasir in the oil -rich upper Nil state. Soi said that the attack was allegedly carried out by the White Army, which was allied with Machar's Splm-IO.

“He is under house arrest, some other opposition politicians were also arrested,” said Soi. “We heard from the government spokesman who says that the investigation goes on. And if that happens, these politicians are charged with rebellion.”

The hospital attack is the latest escalation in an attack on opposition groups throughout the country led by the government. Since March, government troops have been supported by soldiers from Uganda, dozens of air strikes in areas in the neighboring upper Nile state.

Several western embassies, including those of the United States, said in a statement on Friday that the political and security -relevant situation in South Sudan had been “significantly” deteriorated in the past few days.

The messages asked Kiir to free Machar from the house arrest, and called for a “return to the dialogue urgently to achieve a political solution”.

A choice that was to take place in 2023 has already been postponed twice and is now only planned in 2026.