South Sudan: UN Agencies Sound Alarm Over Rising Hunger
6.5M people in African country face severe food insecurity, need urgent assistance, report says. Three UN organizations Friday called for immediate humanitarian access to parts of South Sudan s Pibor County in Jonglei State, where people have run out of food and are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
According to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, the UN s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) are scaling up their response, along with other humanitarian aid organizations.
The high levels of hunger are being driven by insecurity, the effects of COVID-19, the economic crisis, and the impact of flooding on livelihoods, the report said.
(Juba, 18 December 2020) Following the release of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, the Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, Alain Noudéhou, re-iterated the commitment of the humanitarian community to scale up its response to meet people’s increasing needs and to save lives.
The IPC analysis projects that by mid-2021, an estimated 7.24 million people or 60 per cent of the South Sudanese population will face severe acute food insecurity and will need urgent assistance. Many of the families have exhausted their emergency coping strategies. Around 1.4 million children under age 5 are expected to be acutely malnourished in 2021, which is the highest number in three years.
2020-12-18 17:36:07 GMT2020-12-19 01:36:07(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
JUBA, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) Three UN agencies on Friday called for unhindered humanitarian access to parts of South Sudan s Pibor County in Jonglei State, where people have run out of food and are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF said in a joint statement that humanitarian assistance is needed to save lives and avert a total collapse of livelihoods in hard-to-reach areas. We call on all parties to stop the violence and to ensure safe humanitarian access in order to prevent an already dire situation from turning into a full-blown catastrophe, said FAO representative in South Sudan Meshack Malo.
Conflict, floods and coronavirus push
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Sixty percent of S.Sudan population facing acute hunger: UN
By AFP
DEC 18, 2020
Around 60 percent of South Sudan s population could suffer from severe hunger by the middle of next year. By TONY KARUMBA (AFP/File)
Roughly 60 percent of South Sudan s population face severe hunger by the middle of next year, the government and UN agencies warned Friday, calling for urgent assistance to address the growing crisis.
In a new joint report they also said that 1.4 million children face acute malnutrition in the conflict-ravaged eastern African nation. The food security situation and nutrition situation has deteriorated, Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan s National Bureau of Statistics, said in the capital Juba as he released the country s latest hunger assessment.