The ramifications of rampant inter-communal conflicts and the menacing floods that affected several states in 2021 have started to show as many citizens stare at devastating hunger this year.

Already, some states have issued warnings about impending famine, as locals face one of the worst hunger crises in history, caused by a combination of factors.

According to local authorities in Kapoeta North and East counties in Eastern Equatoria State, thousands of people are already relocating to adjacent counties, with some moving towards neighbouring Ethiopia in search of food and water.

The County Commissioner of Kapoeta North, Emmanuel Lokimo, told The City Review on Wednesday that his area had received an overwhelming number of internally displaced persons from Kapoeta East who were in dire need of assistance.

“I am appealing to the government through the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission and to the humanitarian organisations to assist the population. The situation is deplorable,” Mr Lokimo said.” “This is a national issue in South Sudan because hunger is spread all over the country.”

 “These people are running away from Kapoeta East due to a lack of food and drinking water. We have sheltered them in schools and churches, where they are now sharing the little resources with the host community. “

Last year, the governor of Eastern Equatoria, Louis Lobong Lojore, decried hunger in his state, which had claimed the lives of some people in Kapoeta counties.

 “I cannot tell you the number of people that have been affected… we have informed our partners and they are still preparing their report so that they can declare technically what it is: is it hunger? Is it famine, or what is it? As a layperson, what I know is that there is a shortage of food,” Governor Lobong told media in Torit, late 2021.

Worst could come

But this could be just an early warning of the repeated scenarios of the past two years that could overwhelm the country and place its population at the brink of famine worsened by the flooding.

In 2021, floods and drought, coupled with the impact of COVID-19, placed thousands in a hunger situation, said the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, and the aid agencies. 

Seven of ten states of South Sudan and two administrative areas were submerged in water that had destroyed the community livelihoods in the greater Upper Nile region, some parts of Equatoria and Bahr el Ghazal regions. The majority of those affected are women, children, and elderly people, who are now in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Though the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has already warned that 2022 would be the year of hunger in South Sudan, the government has yet to make public its strategies to avert the situation.

While floods could be the major cause of famine in most parts of the country, places like Tombura in Western Equatoria State are also likely to face the consequences of the last year’s inter-communal conflict as they harvested nothing from the second to last season of farming. Thousands of people in Tombura were displaced from their homes and some had their first season harvests burned in their houses.

In October 2021, the government allocated $10 million to provide food, and non-food items as well as relocate thousands of flood-affected people. But activists said there was no transparency on how it was utilised. 

“As a consequence of floods, agricultural production has become very low in the flood-affected states. Now [we] are left with only two months to the rain season and the state is quiet about the strategy to combat the next wave of floods and prevent hunger,’’ said Edmund Yakani, Executive Director for Progress Organisation (CEPO).

“And at the same time, there is no update on the $10 million that was allocated for the flood victims. We have just got the information that they have used the money; when did they release it, and how did they use the money?” he questioned.

The spread

According to the South Sudan Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 2021, most parts of the country are facing catastrophic food insecurity (IPC 5). These, among other areas, were the Pibor Administrative Area, Eastern Equatoria, and the Jonglei states.

It further indicated that more than half of the aid-dependent country’s population—more than 6.5 per cent—was facing one of the worst hunger crises in South Sudan’s history of existence as a sovereign nation.

South Sudan—which is among the East African countries to benefit from the recent £17 million support package from the United Kingdom to combat floods and drought—received donations of $6.5 million and $95 million from Japan and the United States, respectively.