South Sudan fighting forces 100,000 to flee, says U.N
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April 20, 2017 (JUBA) – About 100,000 people have been displaced in
the wake of the recent violence that occurred in South Sudan’s Jonglei
state region, a top United Nations official said.
JPEG - 47.7 kb
Staff from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) register displaced people
at the Eastern Bank transit camp in South Sudan’s Western Bahr el
Ghazal state on 29 August 2014 (ST)
Eugene Owusu, the U.N humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan said
aid workers have also been forced out of the area, expressing concerns
over the dire humanitarian situation in the region.
"The guns have to fall silent, the humanitarian situation will
continue to deteriorate," he told reporters in the capital, Juba on
Wednesday.
According to Owusu, for U.N humanitarian agencies to assist the 3.5
million people displaced by the conflict that started in 2013, “the
guns have to fall silent and the cessation of hostilities must hold.”
“While humanitarians [agencies] will continue to do all that is
possible to alleviate suffering, the fact remains that unless the guns
fall silent, the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate,”
he said.
At least 7.5 million of the estimated 12 million South Sudanese will
need assistance in 2017, the U.N humanitarian respond plan showed.
The U.N relief chief said the new clashes in different parts of the
country including Wau Shilluk in Upper Nile Region, Wau in Western
Bahr El Ghazal and Kajo-Keji in Central Equatoria have triggered new
waves of displacements of thousands of people.
“Food insecurity and malnutrition is a serious challenge and have
reached unprecedented levels in this country,” said Owusu, adding that
“hundreds of thousands of people are facing starvation and a million
more are on the brink of famine across the country.”
Famine was declared in Unity State’s Mayendit and Leer countries in
February. At least 100,000 people in the home region of Former First
Vice President and leader of the armed SPLM in Opposition (IO), Riek
Machar, could starve to death due to lack of food. UN agencies said
some food was delivered in March to the area.
But in some parts of the country, however, humanitarian workers
reportedly had to withdraw due to difficult and dangerous environment
and humanitarian workers are “paying with their lives”.
82 aid workers, the U.N said, have been killed since December 2013,
including the three humanitarian contractors killed in Wau last week.
“Aid workers are often harassed across the country and humanitarian
compounds and supplies have been looted and vandalized, and most
recently in Jonglei, in Kajo-Keji, Yei, Wau Shilluk and in Mayendit –
all these happened between February and March,” stressed the U.N
official.
“The humanitarian challenges that we are dealing with are the
consequences of the failure of politics to reconcile differences and
to address grievances. We must fix the politics, all parties must step
up efforts towards the political solution to help lessen the
humanitarian case-load,” he further observed.
Conflict broke out in December 2013 following months of internal
wrangling in the ruling SPLM party over leadership, vision of the
party, reforms and democracy. The three-year-old war has killed
thousands of people and displaced 1.6 million people as refugees to
neighboring countries. Also, an estimated 1.9 million others are
internally displaced in the country, with about 200,000 civilians
sheltering at the U.N protection of civilians’ sites situated in
government-controlled towns.
(ST)
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