Red Alert as famine ravages South Sudan

malnourished child in South Sudan:

The food crisis in the world’s youngest country, Sudan is one of the key issues being deliberated on at this week’s World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban, which has in attendance the continent’s business and political elite.

 The chief executive of the charity Stop Hunger Now Southern Africa, Saira Khan warned that a chaotic international response to the situation in South Sudan was threatening the lives of millions.

 Khan said the famine could claim as much as 6 million lives, with the international community struggling to raise $4.4billion to prevent a fuul blown disasters.

“It’s pretty gloomy. We’re seeing a lot of confusion amongst the NGOs and governments in terms of what needs to be done,” she said.

In February, South Sudan and the United Nations formally declared a famine in some parts of the northern Greater Unity region affecting 100,000 people, a disaster UN officials said was “man-made” and could have been averted.

After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the country descended into civil war in December 2013 when a power struggle erupted between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar. Tens of thousands died and more than 3.5 million have been displaced.

“The real instability in the area with the war and migrants just going and settling where they can has contributed to this and put enormous pressure on Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda,” Khan said.

Oxfam International’s executive director Winnie Byanyima told AFP that a huge funding shortfall for relief efforts was threatening lives.


The UN has estimated that $4.4 billion is needed by July to avoid widespread loss of life in South Sudan — but just 26 percent of that has been raised so far.

“The need is huge, the gap is huge,” Byanyima said. “It needs to be filled urgently. When people die in a famine it’s a sign of failure because you can prevent it if you act early enough.”

More than 1.9 million people are internally displaced and at least 1.7 million have fled to safety across the country’s borders so far. A total of 830,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled to neighbouring Uganda and the UN expects this figure will reach more than a million by mid-year.

“I visited places where people are trapped in what are called ‘protection of civilian’ camps. The women there face a choice between hunger or stepping out and being raped while looking for food,” Byanyima said.




AFP