{"id":54630,"date":"2019-12-14T09:32:05","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T01:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=54630"},"modified":"2019-12-14T09:32:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T01:32:07","slug":"famine-stalks-millions-in-south-sudan-after-droughts-floods-u-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=54630","title":{"rendered":"Famine stalks millions in South Sudan after droughts, floods – U.N"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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JUBA, Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Famine threatens the lives of up to 5.5 million people in South Sudan, where droughts and flooding have destroyed crops and livestock, compounding \u201cintense political instability\u201d, the United Nations warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.N.\u2019s World Food Programme (WFP) said it needed $270 million urgently to provide food to hungry South Sudanese in the first half of 2020 and avert mass starvation in the world\u2019s youngest country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery factor is in place for there to be famine in 2020 unless we take immediate action to expand our deliveries in areas affected by floods and other areas affected by food loss,\u201d Matthew Hollingworth, WFP country director, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to pre-position food around the country in the next two to three months,\u201d he said, noting that road access to many remote communities would be impossible after the rainy season sets in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government declared a state of emergency in late October in Bahr El Ghazal, Greater Upper Nile and Greater Equatoria after months of flooding, WFP said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 1 million people are directly affected by the floods and the waters have not receded in many places, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe scale of the loss from the harvest is enormous,\u201d Hollingworth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fields with 73,000 tonnes of sorghum, millet and corn have been lost as well as tens of thousands of cattle, chickens and goats on which families depended for survival, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acute malnutrition rates in children under the age of five have risen from 13% in 2018 to 16% this year, Hollingworth said, adding: \u201cThey have gone above the global emergency threshold of 15%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water-borne diseases are spreading, although no cholera has been detected, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt can only get worse because of the situation and environment people are living in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil war broke out in oil-producing South Sudan in 2013, less than two years after the country gained independence from Sudan following decades of war. The conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people and forced millions from their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inter-communal fighting still occurs in pockets hit by the flooding, Hollingworth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHunger and desperation bring instability when resources are stretched to the extent that makes an already unstable situation much worse. It is a wake-up call for us all,\u201d he said. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUBA, Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Famine threatens the lives of up to 5.5 million people in South Sudan, where droughts and flooding have destroyed crops and livestock, compounding \u201cintense political instability\u201d, the United Nations warned. The U.N.\u2019s World Food Programme (WFP) said it needed $270 million urgently to provide food to hungry South Sudanese in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54630"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}