South Sudan suffering a ‘man-made’ tragedy

SOUTH Sudan yesterday declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly five million hungry in what aid groups called a man-made tragedy.

South Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics chairman, Isaiah Chol Aruai, said some parts of the northern Greater Unity region “are classified in famine, or . . . risk of famine”.

Aid agencies said 100 000 people were affected by the famine, which threatened a further one million people in the coming months.

“A formal famine declaration means people have already started dying of hunger. The situation is the worst since fighting erupted more than three years ago,” a statement by the World Food Programme, UN children’s agency Unicef and the Food and Agricultural Organisation said.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, was engulfed by civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his rival and former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

An August 2015 peace deal was left in tatters when fighting broke out in Juba in July last year.

Violence -- initially between ethnic Dinka supporters of Kiir and ethnic Nuer supporters of Machar -- has since spread to other parts of the country.

The UN has warned of potential genocide and ethnic cleansing and there is no prospect of peace in sight.

Oil-rich Unity State, a traditional Nuer homeland and Machar’s birthplace, has been one of the flashpoints and has flipped several times between government and rebel forces.

“The convergence of evidence shows that the long-term effects of the conflict coupled with high food prices, economic crisis, low agricultural production and depleted livelihood options have resulted in 4.9 million people [42% of the population] going hungry,” Aruai said.