Parts of South Sudan officially in famine

NTD Staff
By NTD Staff
February 20, 2017News
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Parts of war-ravaged South Sudan are officially in famine, a government official said Monday (February 20).

They say nearly half the country’s population will lack reliable access to affordable food by July.

Oil-rich South Sudan has been mired in civil war since 2013, when President Salva Kii fired his deputy.

Since then the fighting has increasingly divided the country along ethnic lines, leading the United Nations to warn of a potential genocide.

Many farmers have been prevented from harvesting their crops and hyperinflation, which reached more than 800 percent last year, has put the price of imported food beyond the reach of many.

Parts of the country have also been hit by drought.

According to the UN, famine is declared when at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent and two or more people per 10,000 are dying per day.

Some have no choice but to leave their home country in search of safety and nutrition.

Uganda alone now hosts some 740,000 refugees, most of whom have come since last year, says Lutheran World Federation’s Jesse Kamstra.

“And in this year alone in the first six weeks we have seen over 100,000 people that have arrived in Uganda, so all resources for all agencies are stretched to the absolute maximum,” said Jesse Kamstra, Lutheran World Federation Uganda Country Representative.

Officials in Uganda say their transit and reception centers can only hold so many refugees.

Many new arrivals resort to sleeping wherever there is space.

It’s a reality many of these refugees face.

(REUTERS)

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