More than 7.7 million South Sudanese, or about 63% of the population of this escalating country, will face a food crisis by July, the government and the United Nations announced on Saturday. This figure represents an increase of 7% compared to the same period – from April to July – last year, which corresponds to the dry season.
According to this joint report, presented to the press on Saturday, climate shocks (floods and droughts) and population displacement are contributing to increased food insecurity, as well as armed clashes in the regions.
Peace to avoid famine
“We will continue to maintain the situation in South Sudan if we do not start (…) securing peace at the local level,” said Sara Beysolow Nyanti, in charge of UN humanitarian coordination in Sudan. “subnational violence”.
“Until the conflict is resolved, we will continue to see these numbers increase because it means people will not have safe access to their land to cultivate,” said Adeyinka Badejo, director of the World Food Program (WFP) in South Sudan.
“We call on all the country’s leaders to continue (progress) toward peace,” she added.
Resumption of the fighting
On Friday, new fighting broke out in Unity state (north) between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and others loyal to his Vice President Riek Machar.
The clashes came less than a week after the two leaders, former enemies, agreed to work to keep the peace and establish a united command of the armed forces, one of many unexecuted terms of the war. the peace agreement they signed in 2018 to put an end to it. five years of a deadly civil war.
The report presented on Saturday is based on the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) index which includes five levels of severity of the situation: minimal, pressured, crisis, emergency, famine.
According to him, 80% of the population in food crisis is in the states of Unity, Jonglei, Upper Nile, Warrap and Eastern Equatoria.
In these areas, about 55,000 people were already considered to be in a disaster/famine situation during the February-March period.
