Juba - Suspension of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to South Sudan is poised to send the country into a year of unprecedented hunger with the first victims being two children and an adult dying of starvation in a displacement camp in the northern Warrap state.
The suspension of aid comes at the worst possible time, when over 60 percent of the population are grappling with severe food insecurity during the lean season, fuelled by continuing conflict, severe flooding, localized drought, and soaring food prices exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine.
In June, the WFP said it needed $426m to continue distributing food and avoid the risk of starvation for 1.7 million people.
“We are extremely concerned about the impact of the funding cuts on children, women and men who will not have enough to eat during the lean season. These families have completely exhausted their coping strategies. They need immediate humanitarian assistance to put food on the table in the short-term and to rebuild their livelihoods and resilience to cope with future shocks,” said Adeyinka Badejo, Acting Country Director of the World Food Programme in South Sudan.
“Humanitarian needs are far exceeding the funding we have received this year. If this continues, we will face bigger and more costly problems in the future, including increased mortality, malnutrition, stunting, and disease,” said Badejo.
WFP had exhausted all options before suspending food assistance, including halving rations in 2021, leaving families in need with less food to eat. These latest reductions to assistance will also impact 178,000 schoolchildren who will no longer receive daily school meals – a crucial safety net that helps keep South Sudanese children in school to learn and grow.
WFP’s crisis response and resilience-building development programmes are drastically underfunded this year. WFP requires US$ 426 million dollars to reach six million food insecure people through 2022.
Sami Al Subaihi, a Médecins Sans Frontières worker at the camp, told the BBC that one of the children who died in the displacement camp was just five years old.
"I find the mother of one of the children sitting by her five-year-old son's small, freshly dug grave," he said. "Her three other children, all very thin and weak, sit at the entrance of the family's improvised shelter."
He added that more than 20,000 people living at displacement camps were at risk of starvation.
A WFP official told the BBC the body even with the suspended assistance they continue [to help] 4.5 million people".
South Sudan has been wracked with violence since it achieved independence in 2011 and this has contributed to food insecurity, despite the formation of a unity government in 2020.
The situation has also been worsened by four consecutive seasons of flooding that have destroyed homes and farmlands, and displaced tens of thousands.
-WFP/BBC