Doctors without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has called for urgent financial support to address the severe drought, hunger, and mass displacement in South Sudan.
According to the humanitarian organisation, more than 200,000 people are at risk in the country given the lack of food, proper shelter, and dismal water conditions.
Development Diaries understands that aid organisations responding to the crisis are being forced to reduce their activities due to the shortfall in funding.
It is understood that following violent intercommunal clashes in early February in and around Agok, Abyei Special Administrative Area, residents fled north to Abyei town and south into Twic County in South Sudan’s Warrap State.
In Twic County, over 33,000 people still do not have access to basic essentials even as food shortages continue to drive many into severe hunger, acute malnutrition, and physical exhaustion.
‘Walking around the makeshift camps in Twic County, more than anything, this is what the community tells me they are worried about: the lack of food’, MSF’s Emergency Project Coordinator, Sami Al-Subaihi, said.
‘In one camp I see people collapsing, physically exhausted. They clearly [have not] had enough food for a while.
‘I do not see anyone cooking or any food stored in any of the shelters. People tell me that there are almost no fish left in the drying river, forcing many to collect leaves to eat’.
MSF says it has provided the communities in the county with almost 500 metric tonnes of food. But there is a need to prepare them for the coming weeks and months, especially with the impending rainy season.
Source: MSF
Photo source: MSF
