The starvation in South Sudan’s Pibor County is pushing people into eating wild vegetables and desert dates, and this situation can get worse if immediate assistance is not received.
Development Diaries reports that over seven million people in the country are facing extreme hunger, including 79,000 facing starvation, according to a report by Oxfam.
We understand that the number of people facing starvation has more than doubled than that of 2023.
South Sudan continues to suffer from climate-induced challenges like flooding and drought with over 70 percent of the country, including the Pibor region, affected by floods for the past six years.
The ongoing economic crisis and conflict in neighbouring Sudan have exacerbated the crippling hunger, starvation, and poverty in the country.
14 months into the conflict in Sudan, over 750,000 returnees and refugees have fled to South Sudan, where they are now facing catastrophic conditions.
Malnutrition is increasing rapidly among children in the overcrowded temporary transit camps along the Sudan-South Sudan borders, exacerbating the crisis, while aid agencies are pulling out due to lack of funding.
‘The scenes of suffering are heart-wrenching. Thousands of people both young and old are hungry and children are severely malnourished; many people are going for days without anything to eat’, Oxfam South Sudan Country Director, Dr Manenji Mangundu, said in a statement.
‘Just this month [July] alone, more than 12 people died from starvation. Record-level flooding is forecasted for this rainy season (June- September), which will only make things worse.
‘It will likely decimate crops and push nearly 3.3 million already vulnerable people to a breaking point’.
Without urgent assistance, many lives will be lost. Humanitarian assistance must be ramped up to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
Development Diaries call on donor organisations to assist in providing humanitarian organisations with the funding that they need to support communities across South Sudan to ward off catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the country.
Source: Oxfam
Photo source: Amy the Nurse
