UNICEF calls for urgent action to avert child malnutrition in S. Sudan

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for more efforts to help thousands of children from suffering from severe acute malnutrition in South Sudan.

UNICEF Representative in South Sudan Jonathan Veitch warned that malnutrition that South Sudan is on the verge of a nutrition crisis and nearly a quarter of 1 million children will suffer severe acute malnutrition by the end of the year if more is not done now.

"Sadly, worse is yet to come. If conflict continues, and farmers miss the planting season, we will see child malnutrition on a scale never before experienced here," said Veitch said in a statement received on Saturday.

Many children in South Sudan already faced emergency levels of under-nutrition in the two and a half years since independence in 2011.

The UN agency said the ongoing conflict, which erupted in December 15, 2013, has pushed children to the edge - unless treatment is not scaled up immediately, up to 50,000 children under the age of five are likely to die.

"If we cannot get more funds and better access to reach malnourished children in South Sudan, tens of thousands of under- fives will die," Veitch said.

He said more than 3.7 million people, including almost 740,000 children under five, in the country are at high risk of food insecurity. Many are already resorting to eating so-called "famine foods," wild foods such as bulbs and grasses.

"These are not mere statistics – they are the children for whom South Sudan holds so much potential and promise. We must not fail the children of this new and fragile nation," said Veitch.

UNICEF said its immediate goal is to treat more than 150,000 severely malnourished children under five.

In part this will occur through rapid response teams that deliver ready to use therapeutic foods, micronutrient supplements, medicines, water purification sachets, Vitamin A and deworming tablets, and support breast-feeding mothers and pregnant women.

This fast and flexible approach is currently being deployed in remote, previously unreachable areas.

However, to fully meet nutrition needs in South Sudan, UNICEF currently needs 38 million U.S. dollars , of which just 4.6 million dollars has been received.