WFP delivers food to over 50,000 in South Sudan's Yei town

The World Food Program (WFP) said it had delivered food to families trapped for four months by violence in and around the southeastern South Sudanese town of Yei.

In a statement received on Saturday, the WFP said a convoy of 38 trucks, transporting one month of food rations including sorghum, yellow-split peas, and vegetable oil from the WFP, water, sanitation and child protection items from the UNICEF and shelter items from the UNHCR, arrived in the town on Friday.

"We have deployed a rapid response team to provide food to nearly 52,000 people who have been cut off from food supplies for four months," WFP South Sudan Country Director Joyce Luma said.

As armed groups have prevented people from using main roads, refugees in recent weeks are increasingly using informal border-crossing points to flee the country. Many have walked through the bush for days without food or water, according to the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Following an outbreak of renewed fighting between rival forces in the capital Juba in July, there has been a spike in violence in the southern part of the country.

The violence has kept farmers from their fields and disrupted food markets amid ambushes along trade routes including the road between Juba and Yei.

"Yei is traditionally a place where people can grow their own food but since violence intensified in July people have been forced to leave their crops to rot in the field while they remain hungry," Luma said.

"We are bringing assistance now but we are advocating for free and safe movement so that people can cater for their own food needs," she added.

The latest wave of violence has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes to neighbouring countries.

The current aid response in Yei comes after the WFP provided 9,000 people with food at the end of October in the villages of Logwili and Loka West in Lainya county, where people have also fled into bushes as a result of increased insecurity.

The WFP said it had provided food and nutrition assistance for 3.2 million people in South Sudan this year. Endit