After nearly a year-long run of inter-communal violence and devastating floods, at least 7.5 million South Sudanese are projected to face severe hunger worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and reeling political and food insecurity.
The National Bureau of Statistics and Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Technical Working Group in South Sudan released a classified report detailing the food insecurity situation in the country with Jonglei State being the hardest-hit.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) situation between October and November this year, 6.35 million people, more than half of the country population faced food crisis with at least 2 million others on an acute stage.
The IPC analysis indicates that during the same month, a total of 24,000 people were in a catastrophic phase with 11,000 in Pibor County of Pibor Administrative Area and 13,000 in Tonj North County of Warrap State according to Isaiah Chol Arui, Chairperson of the South Sudan National Bureau of Statistics.
Arui said the most food-insecure states were Jonglei, Unity, Upper Nile, Lakes, Warrap, and Northern Bahar el Ghazal States with more than 50% of the population entering the IPC Phase 3 of food insecurity.
The official said in order to save lives and avert total collapse of livelihoods in the affected counties, particularly those with population in IPC Phases 5 and 4, there was urgent need for immediate scale up of multi sectoral humanitarian assistance.
“Urgent action is required for populations in crisis to protect livelihoods and to reduce food consumption gaps,” he explained.
The minister also stated that in the first projection of December 2020 to March 2021, there an estimate of 5.82 million people are most likely to face crisis IPC Phase 3.
South Sudan went through four years of civil war that has led to a massive displacement and economic crisis leading to severe food insecurity, high prevalence of infectious diseases and limited access to health care. hence the country is now experiencing a deteriorating nutrition situation
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme (WFP) are calling on all political parties to exert more effort toward peace implementation to allow humanitarian access to food-insecure communities.
“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 Meshack Malo.
The World Food Programme (WFP) also waved concerns over the increasing number of people suffering due to food and nutrition insufficiency, unprecedented flooding and high prices of commodities in the market.
Makena Walker, WFP Deputy Country Director in South Sudan highlighted that “2021 would extremely be tough”.
Walker said the WFP was determined to do all it can to reach more people for longer periods of time.
Meanwhile, 1.4 million children aged between 6 months and 5 years are expected to be acutely malnourished in 2021 and would be in need of life-saving treatment.
A recent report published by UNICEF indicates that 313,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Mohamed Ayoya, UNICEF’s representative to South Sudan says humanitarian organizations are extremely concerned about the increased number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and need urgent treatment to prevent them from dying.
“The data leaves us with no doubt about the sense of urgency for all of us, Government, donor community and humanitarian actors to join hands and ensure all these children get treatment from becoming malnourished in the first place”, Ayoya said.