South Sudan floods displaced over 380,000, UN reports

A United Nations statement warning about an increase in malaria indicates that flooding in South Sudan has uprooted more than 379,000 people.

Mostly in the north, humanitarian organizations have reported that the youngest nation in the world, extremely sensitive to climate change, is seeing its worst flooding in decades.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday that the floods have affected approximately 1.4 million people across 43 countries, including the disputed Abyei area, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan.

The statement revealed that Abyei and 22 counties housed approximately 379,000 displaced individuals.

The UN agency said, “A surge in malaria has been reported in Jonglei, Unity, Upper Nile, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Central Equatoria, and Western Equatoria—overwhelming the health system and exacerbating the situation and impact in flood-hit areas.”

Since gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has faced continuous instability, bloodshed, and economic stagnation in addition to climate disasters like drought and floods.

Over 1.6 million youngsters suffer from malnutrition

Recently, the World Bank said that the latest floods were “worsening an already critical humanitarian situation marked by severe food insecurity, economic decline, ongoing conflict, disease outbreaks, and the effects of the Sudan conflict,” which has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee to South Sudan.

According to the UN’s World Food Program, more than seven million people in South Sudan don’t have enough food to eat, and 1.65 million children are hungry.

The country will be politically paralyzed for even longer because, in September, the president’s office revealed yet another extension to the transitional period agreed upon in a 2018 peace deal. This will keep elections from happening until December 2026, two years later.

While South Sudan has a lot of oil, in February, an export pipeline was broken in neighboring, war-torn Sudan, cutting off the country’s main source of income.