UN agencies call for urgent funding to help South Sudanese refugees

The UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme on Monday urged donors to step up support for desperate refugees fleeing South Sudan, UN spokesman Sephane Dujarric told reporters here.

Humanitarian agencies are seeking 1.4 billion U.S. dollars to provide life-saving aid to South Sudanese refugees in the six neighboring countries until the end of 2017, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"The South Sudanese refugee response plan so far remains only 14 percent funded," the spokesman said.

South Sudan has now become the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis, with more than 1.8 million refugees, including one million children, having sought safety in neighboring countries, he said.

"The current rate of people fleeing South Sudan exceeds the humanitarian community's already pessimistic estimates," he said. "For example, the number of people fleeing to Sudan in March surpassed the expected figure for the entire year."

Recently famine was officially declared in South Sudan, where the South Sudanese government and the UN said 100,000 people are facing starvation, with one million people classified as being on the brink of famine.

The famine was attributed to many reasons including the civil war and collapse of the economy in the new-born state. Enditem