Sudan: Walking again, despite losing a leg

"When the leg was cut, I was not sad," Bol, who was nine when the operation was done in Malakal in 2006, said. "I was relieved because it was so much pain."

In November 2008, he was fitted with an artificial leg at a centre built by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Southern Sudanese government.

Walking up the stairs at the centre, unsupported by crutches, he smiled, aware that only two years ago he had only one leg.

There are an estimated 80,000 people needing artificial limbs in Southern Sudan. About 80 percent, according to the ICRC, were victims of gunshots, mines and shells.

The statistic is a grim reminder of the devastation wrought by the North-South war. The 21-year conflict ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Nairobi in January 2005.

At that time, Southern Sudanese authorities estimated that 15,000 people needed artificial limbs. In 2006, the Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare revised the estimate to 50,000.

The Commission on War Disabled, Orphans and Widows has lately revised this to 80,000, as remote areas become accessible.

"Many people were injured [but] some were not able to get treatment and have been unable to walk since they were injured in, say, 1994," said Mary Kiden, the Gender, Women and Social Welfare Minister.

Over 19 years to March 2006, some 4,300 patients were fitted with artificial limbs and 2,000 with orthoses - devices that support or correct damaged parts of the body. Another 9,000 received crutches at the ICRC's centre in Lopiding in neighbouring Kenya.

Read the full article here http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82237