This is the second time the country—which faces extreme effects from climate change, including flooding during the rainy season—has closed schools during a heatwave in February and March.
''An average of 12 students had been collapsing in Juba city every day," Deputy Education Minister Martin Tako Moi said on Thursday.
Most schools in South Sudan have makeshift structures made with iron sheets and do not have electricity that could power cooling systems.
Rising temperatures
Environment Minister Josephine Napwon Cosmos, on Thursday, urged residents to stay indoors and drink water as temperatures were expected to rise as high as 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Napwon proposed that government employees “work in shifts” to avoid heat strokes.
Education workers have urged the government to consider amending the school calendar so that schools close in February and resume in April when the temperatures decline.
Abraham Kuol Nyuon, the dean of the Graduate College at the University of Juba, told The Associated Press that the calendar should be localised based on the weather in the 10 states.
Natural disasters
Episodes of drought and increasingly extreme rainfall are adding to already difficult living conditions in South Sudan, which got independence from Sudan in 2011.
Scientists say that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming and that these heatwaves are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
South Sudan has endured persistent natural disasters, famine, economic collapse and communal conflict.
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