South Sudan at risk of famine within five months: UNMISS
Article
Comments (0)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
March 30, 2014 (JUBA) - A shortfall in humanitarian funding could see
South Sudan slide into famine within five months, the head of the UN
mission in the country (UNMISS) has warned.
JPEG - 94.4 kb
UNICEF says children continue experience extreme suffering as a result
of conflict in South Sudan and remain vulnerable to disease outbreaks
(Photo: F. Noy/UNHCR)
Hilde Johnson told a visiting German delegation to the capital, Juba,
on Thursday that at least 800,000 people were in a critical situation.
"Famine as it is being defined is likely within five months unless
humanitarians ... get all the food they need into respective locations
before the rains start," said Johnson. "The clock is ticking and it's
a race against time."
Of the $1.27 billion needed to address humanitarian needs in South
Sudan by June, just 25% has been funded so far, with the large gaps
affecting priority sectors such as civilian protection, as well as
water, sanitation and hygiene.
Johnson said providing force protection to humanitarian agencies
delivering assistance is now among the key priorities of the mission,
with insecurity and lawlessness in many parts hindering access to some
areas.
The conflict in South Sudan has left nearly 5 million people in need
of humanitarian assistance, including 3.7 million at high risk of food
insecurity, the UN says.
Johnson's comments followed calls by John Ging, the operations manager
for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
for a greater international response to address the crisis in South
Sudan.
Speaking at a press briefing in New York last Tuesday after returning
from a recent visit to the region, Ging described the scale of death
and destruction in the world's newest nation, where political tensions
erupted in violence in mid-December last year, as "appalling".
JOINT OPERATION
Last week, UN agencies and their partners launched a joint operation
to deliver food and other relief supplies to some of the most isolated
areas of conflict-affected South Sudan.
Jonglei state's Akobo was the first of 14 locations to be targeted by
the operation, with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food
Programme (WFP) using air drops to assist more than 30,000 people near
the Ethiopian border.
Agencies are aiming to reach as many as 250,000 people in remote
communities in Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity states over the next
month.
"With the rainy season looming we have to seize every opportunity to
rapidly deploy teams and life-saving supplies to the hardest to reach.
This is how we will avert a humanitarian catastrophe," UNICEF's
representative in the country, Jonathan Veitch, said.
WFP says looting and ongoing violence are posing enormous challenges
to relief operations, with the crisis also impacting on food security
in parts of the country not directly affected by fighting due to the
disruption to trade routes and food markets.
"The conflict ... is pushing millions of people further into hunger and
complicating efforts to provide relief, and we are enormously
concerned that things could get worse," said WFP country director
Chris Nikoi.
"We have to act quickly to avert an even worse crisis as the rainy
season approaches. The mobile response teams are a swift and flexible
approach we have been using to reach as many people as we can with
assistance in a tremendously challenging environment," he added.
CHILDREN SUFFERING
Meanwhile, UNICEF has warned that children and families continued to
bear the brunt of the conflict and were now facing "unprecedented
suffering" amid escalating levels of malnutrition and disease
outbreaks.
The conflict has severely disrupted schooling, with many young people
being separated from their families or recruited by armed groups.
Over one million people have been displaced since fighting broke out
between forces loyal to the government and rebel fighters aligned with
former vice-president Riek Machar, including more than 250,000 people
who have fled to neighbouring countries.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says South Sudanese continue to flee at
a rate of nearly 2,000 per day, the majority of whom are women,
children and the elderly.
(ST)
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14op9QL16SPBZ56aAcME%3DrxToSmJSR7YefDFMYybKuK%2Bq-A%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
