UN: There is a “crisis” of food in South Sudan, affecting 7.7 million people

The UN said Wednesday that almost 7.7 million people in South Sudan are in crisis levels of hunger. Many of these people live in the country’s unstable northeast, which has been rocked by recent fighting.
Since it became independent in 2011, the destitute country has had to deal with unrest and insecurity. Recently, there has been violence between forces supporting the president and his deputy, which makes the country even less stable.
A statement from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) on Wednesday said that 7.7 million people are in the third-highest level of need, which is called “crisis, emergency, or catastrophic.”

The report said, “This is very close to a record high.”
A spokesman said 63,000 were in the “highest need” category, and 2.53 million were in the next category. Most of these people were in the northeastern Upper Nile State region.
Violence has risen in that part of the country as troops supporting President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar fight each other.

Due to Machar’s incommunicado detention at home in Juba, the capital, his party appointed Stephen Par Kuol as the temporary head.
The World Food Program (WFP) said that one million people in the Upper Nile area were facing “high levels of hunger” due to the worsening conflict.
“Nowhere to stay and not enough food,” 32-year-old Reath Yian Ulang from Ulang County in Upper Nile State said.

“Traders from Ethiopia used to bring us food, but now that there is a crisis, all of the traders have run back to Ethiopia out of fear.”

“The father of four said on the phone. “People now drink swamp water.”

The agency also said that the violence was making it harder to get life-saving help to people who really need it.
For the safety of our staff, partners, and the people we serve, the WFP had to stop giving out food in six areas in the region due to security concerns.
Furthermore, since the two-year civil war in Sudan began, more than 1.1 million people have fled to South Sudan, most of them coming from the Upper Nile area. The WFP said in the statement that almost half of these people are facing “catastrophic” levels of hunger.
South Sudan is also dealing with an outbreak of cholera. Since September, UNICEF says there have been about 40,000 cases, with almost 700 deaths. Children are most likely to be impacted.

The United States’ decision to cut back on foreign aid has also had an effect on the country. Humanitarian workers have reported that the closure of facilities in remote areas is causing children to die.