After years of war, states in South Sudan that were inaccessible to doctors for more than a decade are now struggling to come to terms with the immense backlog of patients. Specifically, they are seeing massive amounts of trachoma -- an eye disease which can lead to agonizing pain and, eventually, blindness.

The rates are the highest in the world, with more than half (53 percent) of children under 9 being treated for the precursor to the disease with a vast amount carrying it onto adulthood leading to blindness.

A team of eye surgeons led by the country's first female ophthalmologist, Dr Aja, have been addressing this epidemic in the hardest-to-reach regions of South Sudan, camping for two or three weeks at a time, and doing more than 1,000 operations in run-down buildings and tents set up near runways for bush planes.

This story follows the team on their last three days after having spent two weeks in Yuai, a village in central Jonglei State, which is one of the most volatile states in South Sudan. Operating in a tent and crumbling buildings in an old clinic working with a small generator and solar panels providing electricity in 45 degree heat the team did surgery on 1,257 eyes, mainly treating trachoma.

As word spread about the clinic, people walked for days through the bush, often so close to being blind that they used sticks or pieces of cloth held by family members to guide them. As the team was leaving people continued to arrive having only just heard of the clinic. In a region with the highest prevalence in the world it's impossible to treat everyone such an unstable region. The teams flew back to Juba for a small break for flying back out to another remote part of the country to operate on hundreds more people. The surgeons themselves make up the vast majority of eye surgeons in the country depleting the countries hospital of staff when they are away.