United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it will suspend food assistance to 106,000 people displaced in parts of South Sudan for three months due to funding shortages.

Starting October, people displaced in camps in Wau, Juba and Bor South will not receive monthly food rations for the next three months and until the new year, according to the WFP.

The three-month suspension is part of a broader reduction in food assistance that WFP announced in April across all camps.

It affects 700,000 refugees and internally displaced people who now receive half the caloric contents of a WFP food ration.

A full ration provides 2,100 kilocalories per person and includes cereals, pulses, vegetable oil and salt.

The WFP is expected to resume its monthly food assistance for internally displaced people in those camps from January to September 2022.

‘Drastic times call for drastic measures. We are forced to take these painful decisions and stretch our limited resources to meet the critical needs of people who were on the brink of starvation and now risk slipping back into catastrophe if their access to food diminishes’, Country Director of WFP in South Sudan, Matthew Hollingworth, said in a statement.

‘If funding levels continue to drop, we may have no choice but to make further cuts as the needs of vulnerable communities continue to outpace available resources’.

More than 1.4 million South Sudanese are displaced inside the country, with many seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, according to a report by Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE).

The years-long civil war has contributed to an economic crisis and below-average harvest that continues to send food prices skyrocketing.

For the next four months, WFP requires an additional US$154 million to provide food assistance in sufficient quantities, according to the statement.

Source: WFP

Photo source: UNDP