4.9m people in need of help after famine is declared in South Sudan
People are already dying of hunger, and another 1 million people are on the brink of famine, UN agencies said. A combination of civil war and an economic collapse have been blamed. There have been warnings of famine in Yemen, Somalia and north-eastern Nigeria, but South Sudan is the first to declare one.
Now the UN World Food Programme and nongovernmental organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that more than a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive."
Head of the WFP in South Sudan, Joyce Luma, said that the famine was "man-made" after three years of conflict across the country stifled crop production and hit farmers and rural livelihoods.
The impact of the conflict, combined with high food prices, economic disruption and low agricultural production has resulted in the area becoming "food insecure", the UN report added.
"We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources. We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle," George Fominyen, the UN food program spokesman in South Sudan's capital, Juba said.
source: edition.cnn.com, bbc.com
