The UN has warned in recent weeks that the country is on the brink of new civil war.
At least seven people have been killed and another 20 injured in an attack on a town in South Sudan, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has said, as fears grow that the world’s youngest nation will relapse into all-out civil war.
MSF said in statement that it “strongly condemned the deliberate bombing of its hospital in Old Fangak” on Saturday and that the attack destroyed the last remaining functioning hospital and pharmacy there in the north of the country.
MSF initially urged in an X post: “Stop the bombing. Protect civilians. Protect healthcare.” It said the attack was “a clear violation of international law”.
It was not immediately clear why the facility was targeted. A spokesperson for South Sudan’s military could not be reached for comment, according to The Associated Press news agency.
🔴 Today, MSF’s hospital in Old Fangak, South Sudan, was bombed.
The pharmacy was destroyed. All medical supplies lost. There are reports of people killed and injured.
This is the only functional hospital in the area.
Stop the bombing. Protect civilians. Protect healthcare. pic.twitter.com/2xVtEV0sLp
— MSF South Sudan (@MSF_SouthSudan) May 3, 2025
Mamman Mustapha, Head of Mission with MSF in South Sudan, told Al Jazeera from the capital Juba that his team on the ground reported “two helicopter gunships attacking the hospital”.
Mustapha said the helicopters bombed the hospital and its medical supplies, then “continued shelling the town of Old Fangak”.
“The civilian population has fled and the situation is quite horrific and catastrophic … We are quite shocked. The hospital has been there for 10 years, since 2014,” he added.
A further MSF statement said, “The attack began at around 4:30am (02:30GMT) when two helicopter gunships first dropped a bomb on the MSF pharmacy, burning it to the ground, then went on to fire on the town of Old Fangak for around 30 minutes…There are reports of more fatalities and wounded in the community”.
Additional attacks took place hours later near a market in Old Fangak, causing widespread panic and displacement of civilians, according to several witnesses.
Fears of renewed civil war
Tensions between forces allied with President Salva Kiir and those of First Vice President Riek Machar have boiled over.
Old Fangak is one of several major towns in Fangak county, an ethnically Nuer part of the country that is historically associated with the opposition party loyal to Machar, who is now under house arrest for alleged subversion.
The United Nations has warned in recent weeks that South Sudan is on the brink of a renewed civil war as violence between rival factions escalates.
South Sudan fell into a bloody civil war soon after gaining independence in 2011, as forces aligned with Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fought those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
The conflict killed more than 40,000 people before a 2018 peace deal saw the pair form a government of national unity.
The hospital attack is the latest escalation in a government-led assault on opposition groups across the country. Since March, government troops backed by soldiers from Uganda have conducted dozens of air raids on areas in neighbouring Upper Nile State.
Multiple Western embassies, including that of the United States, said in a statement on Friday that the political and security situation in South Sudan has “markedly worsened” in recent days.
The embassies urged Kiir to free Machar from house arrest and called for a “return to dialogue urgently aimed at achieving a political solution”.
An election, which was supposed to be held in 2023, has already been postponed twice and is now not scheduled until 2026.
