South Sudan’s Food Insecurity Situation ‘Worst in World’

{{Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have described the current food insecurity situation in South Sudan as the “worst in the world”.}}

During its Friday session chaired by Rwanda’s Eugene-Richard Gasana, the UNSC further expressed deep alarm that the crisis in the young nation may soon reach the threshold of famine, citing continued conflict, civilian targeting, and displacement.

Nearly 1.5 million people, aid agencies say, have been forced out of their homes since violence broke out in South Sudan late last year, while over 50,000 children below five years risk dying from malnutrition this year.

However, the 15-member Council urged all UN member states, who together pledged more than $618 million in new funding for both South Sudan and the region in May at a humanitarian pledging conference in Oslo, Norway, to swiftly fulfil those pledges and increase their commitments.

The funds, they further stressed, are critically needed now to provide life-saving assistance in view of the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in the world’s youngest nation.

LOOMING FAMINE

At least 3.9 million people in South Sudan risk facing starvation that could reach “catastrophic” levels if peace negotiations were unable to stem ongoing fighting in the country, the US warned on Friday.

“This is not a crisis caused by drought or flood; it is a calamity created by conflict,” said US secretary of state John Kerry.

“South Sudan’s leaders need to make choices and they need to make them now if they’re going to pull their country back from the brink of famine,” he added.

South Sudan recently marked only its third independence anniversary, but a conflict fuelled by ethnic and personal power struggles is already threatening to tear the country apart. Even the US, a close ally of South Sudan, is struggling to pull the latter from the brink of civil war.

Throughout the conflict, however, the US has spoken out against killing of innocent civilians, lack of access to those in need of aid as well as the failure by South Sudanese leaders to end the ongoing violence.

{sudantribune}