Aid workers arrive in S. Sudan's war-torn Unity state
Xinhua, December 2, 2015 Adjust font size:
Two teams of aid workers have arrived in South Sudan's war-torn Unity State amid growing concern over severe food shortage, the United Nations said.
The aid workers were deployed on Tuesday to Leer Town and Thonyor in Leer County to re-establish humanitarian operations," according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"They brought with them life-saving supplies, including survival kits, high energy biscuits and blankets, to deliver to people in need who have been cut-off from assistance since fighting resumed in October 2015," the OCHA said in a statement.
About 40,000 people might be facing catastrophic food insecurity in Unity State in October 2015, the statement said, citing a team of specialists in food security and nutrition who visited Jaguar and Dablual in Mayendit County, Bil in Guit County and Buaw in Koch County.
"Without food and livelihoods assistance and nutrition and health services, the situation is likely to degenerate significantly in the first quarter of 2016," the team warned.
In December 2013, fighting erupted in South Sudan between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Riek Machar.
The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension, pitting the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.
The clashes killed thousands of South Sudanese and forced around 1.9 million individuals to flee their homes. Endit