The United Nations says that 1.4 billion US dollars is needed this year alone to help the nearly two million people who have fled war and famine in South Sudan.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Program on Monday presented an updated response plan to the crisis in appealing for nearly double the 781 million dollars they had previously said they needed.
“Bitter conflict and deteriorating humanitarian conditions in South Sudan are driving people from their homes in record numbers,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement.
With food insecurity being a concern in South Sudan's Greater Kapoeta region, the WFP and partners have completed food distribution to 70,000 people in the area. /WFP South Sudan Photo
Brutal civil war
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, fell into a brutal civil war in December 2013, just two years after it split from the north.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the country since then, with some 1.8 million forced to flee the country, including about one million children, to seek refuge in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Another two million have been displaced inside the country, but they are not covered by Monday’s appeal.
Waving their forms, recently arrived South Sudanese refugees demand to be registered at Imvepi reception center in Arua district in northern Uganda. /UNHCR Photo
Hungry people
The country has declared famine in some areas and has warned that a million people are on the brink of starvation.
“The suffering of the South Sudanese people is just unimaginable,” WFP chief David Beasley said in a statement, saying that many are “close to the abyss”.
“Aid workers often cannot reach the most vulnerable hungry people. Many are dying from hunger and disease, many more have fled their homeland for safety abroad,” he said.
A health worker screens a child for signs of malnutrition at a health center in Nyumanzi refugee settlement in Uganda in May 2017. /UNHCR Photo
Pessimistic estimates
The UN said people were now fleeing South Sudan at a rate that far exceeded already pessimistic estimates.
“The number of people fleeing to Sudan in March surpassed the expected figure for the entire year,” it said, with about 375,000 South Sudanese refugees now in the country.
Ethiopia is hosting the same number, while the situation in Uganda is even more dire, with nearly 900,000 refugees from South Sudan in that country.
Kenya counts about 97,000 South Sudanese refugees, DR Congo has 76,000 and the Central African Republic has 2,200.
A group of women share maize distributed as food aid in Ngop in South Sudan's Unity State on March 10 2017. /AFP Photo
Brothers and sisters
Aid agencies are struggling to secure the funds they need to help the refugees, making it difficult to provide food, water, shelter and health services.
So far, only 14 percent of the initial 781 million dollar appeal for 2017 has been provided.
“Our funding situation forced us to cut food rations for many refugees in Uganda,” Beasley said, a situation he called “unacceptable”.
“These are families like yours and mine, our brothers and sisters, and the world must help them now - not later,” he said.
(Source AFP)
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