The UK government says it will stop giving aid to nine state hospitals in South Sudan from 1 August, raising fears that the move will further cripple a health system that barely functions.

At Aweil Civil Hospital, fans are whirling overhead, and patients lie on almost bare beds covering themselves with pieces of traditional cloth, known as kitenge.

With its decaying facade it's hard to imagine that much has changed at the hospital since it was built in 1964.

But over the past four years there has been at least one big development - Dr Dut Pioth became the first-ever South Sudanese surgeon to be posted to the facility.

As he lead the rounds in the surgical ward, Dr Pioth says: "When I was still a medical officer [seeing outpatients at the hospital], there were too many patients who lost their lives because there was no surgeon that could try to help them."

Born in Aweil North in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, Dr Pioth went to the capital Juba, trained to become a general surgeon, and came back to help his community.