Off the wire
• At least two tornadoes hit San Antonio, Texas  • Bolivia believes seized arsenal of weapons was bound for Brazil  • International support to Lebanon not enough: UN  • Famous writer Neil Gaiman appointed as UN goodwill ambassador for refugees  • Shortages in food aid affect 2 mln refugees in Africa: UN agencies  • Tens of thousands of families "at extreme risk" after retake operation of Mosul: humanitarian agency  • French investigators raid far-right party's office on allegations of fake job  • Spotlight: Greek gov't hails Eurogroup decision on bailout review, critics see more austerity measures  • Urgent: General H.R. McMaster named new national security advisor  • Iraqi forces close to international airport in western Mosul  
You are here: 　 Home

UN agencies report famine in parts of South Sudan

Xinhua, February 21, 2017 Adjust font size:

Three UN agencies have warned that war and a collapsing economy have left some 100,000 people facing starvation in parts of South Sudan where famine was declared on Monday, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here.

"A further one million people are on the brink of famine," Haq said at a daily news briefing here. "The situation is the worst hunger catastrophe since fighting erupted in the country more than three years ago."

World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director Joyce Luma stressed that this famine is man-made, Haq said, adding that she said the entire humanitarian community has been trying with all its might to avoid this catastrophe, mounting a humanitarian response of a scale that would have seemed impossible three years ago.

But she said there is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security, both for relief workers and the crisis-affected people they serve.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and WFP also called for urgent action to prevent more people from dying of hunger, he said.

"If sustained and adequate assistance is delivered urgently, the situation can be improved in the coming months and further suffering mitigated," Haq said. "Unimpeded humanitarian access to everyone facing famine, or at risk of famine, is urgently needed to reverse the escalating catastrophe."

Famine has been declared in parts of Unity State in the northern-central part of South Sudan, the youngest country in the world. The formal announcement means people have already started dying of hunger.

Three years of civil war has been going on in the oil-rich country after it gained independence from Sudan at the end of one of Africa's longest running conflicts.

Unity State, which borders Sudan, has been at the centre of some of the fiercest fighting, while tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes in the face of a government offensive against opposition-held areas. Endit