SPECIAL REPORT: South Sudan Groan under Second Ravaging Famine

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News, North Africa Monday, February 20th, 2017

BALTIMORE, MD (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – A full blown famine has been declared in parts of South Sudan, the first ever to be announced in any part of the world in the last six years.

South Sudan government and the United Nations (UN) confirmed that some 100,000 people are facing starvation, with a million more on the brink of famine. The situation has been blamed on the combination of civil war and an economic collapse.

There have been warnings of famine in Yemen, Somalia and north-eastern Nigeria, but South Sudan is the first to declare one.

The famine is currently affecting parts of the Unity’s state in South Sudan, but humanitarian groups have warned that the crisis could spread if urgent help is not received.

Aid agencies, including the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the children’s fund UNICEF, said that 4.9 million people – more than 40 per cent of South Sudan’s population – is urgently in need of food.

The report on Monday said that an increase in humanitarian assistance was needed in order to prevent the famine from spreading to other vulnerable areas.

“If sustained and adequate assistance is delivered urgently, the hunger situation can be improved in the coming months and further suffering mitigated,” the report said.

Head of the WFP in South Sudan, Joyce Luma, asserted that the famine was “man-made”, especially when consider three years of conflict across the country stifled crop production and hit farmers and rural livelihoods.

The famine challenge the report affirm has been compounded by high food prices, economic disruption and low agricultural production – culminating in general food insecurity.

The last time South Sudan experienced famine was in 1998 – during the war for independence from Sudan. BBC