WFP: Assistance suspended for South Sudan, 1.7 million people at risk of starvation

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has announced the suspension of food assistance in South Sudan due to resource shortages, despite the country suffering from its worst hunger crisis since independence.

The suspension would leave a third of South Sudan's population severely food insecure, threatening 1.7 million people with starvation, in a country with large areas of fertile arable land.

The WFP is severely underfunded this year. According to reports, the program needs $426 million to solve a crisis facing six million food-insecure people in South Sudan until September 2022.

The people of South Sudan “need immediate humanitarian assistance to put food on the table in the short-term and to rebuild their livelihoods and resilience to cope with future shocks,” said Adeyinka Badejo, WFP Acting Country Director in South Sudan.

“Humanitarian needs are far exceeding the funding we have received this year. If this continues, we will face bigger and more costly problems in the future, including increased mortality, malnutrition, stunting, and disease,” added Badejo.

The WFP had cut food rations to South Sudan in half in 2021.

According to the organization's statement, the latest reduction will affect 178,000 school children who will not receive daily school meals. It will also force the disadvantaged to return to survival strategies such as skipping or reducing meals, selling assets, child labor and child marriage.

The food rations provided by the World Food Program include cereals, pulses, vegetable oil and salt. The WFP provides assistance to nearly 4.5 million people suffering from extreme hunger in 52 counties in South Sudan, including 87,000 people living in famine-like conditions.

Over the past week, major UN food agencies have predicted that food insecurity in 20 “hunger hotspots” will be exacerbated this year by war, conflict and climate change, putting 49 million people in 46 countries at risk of starvation.

Conflict and organized violence were the main cause of the hunger crisis in northern Nigeria, central Sahel, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Benin, Guinea and Cabo Verde.

In South Sudan, the dry season, ongoing conflict, severe flooding, localized drought and high food prices exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine will expose more than 60 percent of the population to acute food insecurity.

At the launch of the latest Global Crisis Response Group campaign brief, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, “For those on the ground, every day brings new bloodshed and suffering. And for people around the world, the war, together with the other crises, is threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake.”

“Vulnerable people and vulnerable countries are already being hit hard, but make no mistake, no country or community will be left untouched by this cost-of-living crisis.”

In February 2017, South Sudan and the United Nations declared famine in parts of Unity State in the northern part of the country, which gained independence in 2011. The United Nations warned that the famine could spread very quickly to the rest of the states if South Sudan did not take more measures to address the crisis.

According to the United Nations at the time, more than 100,000 people were affected by the civil war and economic collapse that the country suffered. The World Food Program said that 40 percent of South Sudan's population, about 4.9 million people, is in urgent need of food.