The UNMIS Kenyan medical team provided treatment to 57 inmates at the Wau prison on 5 June.

The UNMIS Kenyan medical team provided treatment to 57 inmates at the Wau prison on 5 June.

A team of seven Kenyan doctors set up a mobile clinic at the prison and donned rubber gloves to treat 17 juveniles, 24 women, nine adult men and seven children between the ages of eight months and three years.

"I believe (the medical treatment by peacekeepers) will encourage these children to be responsible citizens when they leave the prison," said Taban John Guu, the Western Bahr El Ghazal State Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.

Mr. Guu described the specialist team's endeavour as one of the most important acts of assistance that UNMIS has ever given to the state.

"These children need humanitarian assistance and treatment ... because we have a shortage of medical experts to fill the gap," said Wau prison officer Colonel John Machar.

Children deserve special attention as a vulnerable group of society, noted UNMIS Child Protection Officer David Kibiriti during the event. He assured the gathering that the medical camps would be held once every two weeks until a qualified doctor is provided to the clinic as has been promised by the state's minister of health.

The prison medical camp was organized by UNMIS Child Protection Unit in collaboration with the state's ministry of health, which supplied free medicines. The initiative came in response to concerns raised by local police and prison authorities about various infections contracted by some of the imprisoned children.

According to the UNMIS doctors' diagnoses, the most prevalent diseases in the prison were malaria, chicken pox, scabies and diarrhoea.