Famine has been officially declared in South Sudan – the first declaration anywhere around the world for six years. DAVID ADAMS reports…
Famine has been formally declared in parts of South Sudan this week with news that the ongoing conflict in the nation and a collapsing economy has left some 100,000 people starving.
The UN says that as well as those already facing famine in parts of former Unity State in the country’s north, a further million people are “on the brink” of famine in what they are describing as the “worst hunger catastrophe” in the nation since fighting erupted more than three years ago.
South Sudan refugees at food distribution centre in Uganda. PICTURE: World Vision. (This caption has been corrected).
“[T]here is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security, both for relief workers and the crisis-affected people they serve.”
– Joyce Luma, WFP country director in South Sudan
Serge Tissot, the Food and Agriculture Organization representative in South Sudan, said in a statement issued on Monday that the FAO’s “worst fears” had been realised.
“Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive,” he said. “The people are predominantly farmers and war has disrupted agriculture. They’ve lost their livestock, even their farming tools. For months there has been a total reliance on whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch.”
Noting that people are already dying of hunger, the FAO joined with UNICEF and the World Food Programme in warning that urgent action is needed to prevent more deaths.
The UN agencies said that if nothing is done to address the food crisis in the nation, the number of people facing food security in the country is expected to rise to some 5.5 million – almost half the country’s population – by July.
WFP country director Joyce Luma said the famine was “man-made”.
“WFP and the entire humanitarian community have been trying with all our might to avoid this catastrophe, mounting a humanitarian response of a scale that quite frankly would have seemed impossible three years ago,” she said in a statement. “But we have also warned that there is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security, both for relief workers and the crisis-affected people they serve. We will continue doing everything we possibly can to hold off and reverse the spread of famine.”
UNICEF representative Jeremy Hopkins said more than a million children are estimated to be “acutely malnourished” across the country and more than 250,000 children are “severely malnourished”.
“If we do not reach these children with urgent aid many of them will die,” he said. “We urge all parties to allow humanitarian organizations unrestricted access to the affected populations, so we can assist the most vulnerable and prevent yet another humanitarian catastrophe.”
Echoing the call to scale up aid funding and deliveries in the country immediately, Perry Mansfield, the national director for World Vision in South Sudan – which is currently providing food assistance to 500,000 people in various parts of the country, said the situation facing children, already hungry and going without meals, “is now rapidly unraveling”.
Another aid worker, Emma Drew, Oxfam’s humanitarian program manager in South Sudan, said that in more than 30 years in working in affected areas, “Oxfam has never witnessed such dire need.
“People have been pushed to the brink of surviving on what they can find to eat in swamps – as so often in a crisis, women and children being the worst affected,” she said. “We need an end to the fighting so that we can get food to those that urgently need it and provide them with support to rebuild their shattered lives.”
Fighting erupted in South Sudan in December, 2013 – only two years after the country gained independence from Sudan to the north – between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and the SPLA in Opposition backing First Vice-President Riek Machar. Fighting intensified in mid-last year.
The conflict has seen more than three million people flee their homes including more than 1.5 million who have fled to neighbouring countries such as Uganda where the UN refugee agency, UNCHR, says almost 700,000 South Sudanese are now based. The numbers mean the situation in South Sudan is the cause of Africa’s largest refugee crisis.
Humanitarian organisations are appealing for $US1.6 billion for the provision of aid and protection to almost six million in the nation.
Tim Costello, chief advocate for World Vision Australia, who was in South Sudan recently where he met with local church leaders, said earlier this month that the church “may be the best hope to broker peace and end bloodshed in the forgotten war of South Sudan”.
“We must do everything we can to broker peace before there’s more tragedy,” he said at the time.
Correction: Story amended to reflect famine declaration was not made by UN but by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
