AT RISK AS SOUTH SUDAN IS GRIPPED BY FAMINE Chagai’s baby latches on to her breast but there’s no milk as none of the family has eaten in days

killing people around here too. Even now.” Before the fighting the family lived in a place where they could grow peanuts and sorghum and keep cows.

But gunmen came and took the cows so they moved closer too Rumbek, trying to find safety.

Makat said: “If we eat it is good but some daysays we have no food.” He e drinks some water but can’t keep it down.

There was only one thing to do for this hopeless family seekingg shelter from gunmen,n, hyenas, hunger and the midday sun. We drive for 30 minutes to Rumbek marketkt and db buy £70 of essentials – grains, beans, rice, cooking oil, salt, flour, glucose.

It will be enough to last them a month until Plan International can get them more help. They accept the gifts with bemusement. Some neighbours gather to watch and promise to help the family cook the food and get their strength back. But what of other families? Famine is yet to be declared in this district. But there are alreadyalr reports of deaths, includi including one of a mum who retu returned from looking for fo food for family to find th three children dead. “It was not possible t to confirm the report. Plan is t reating s severely malnourished c children at five clinics ar around Rumbek. In the pa past year it has treated 3,000 children. But this a ti tiny proportionti of those affected. Many are trapped i n villages inaccessible because of the fighting. Daniel Kon, Plan International’s field coordinator in Rumbek, is clear this is a man-made famine – an entirely avoidable disaster. He said: “Our problem is not how to get food, but how we are killing ourselves.

“If you go to the field you can be killed. If you go somewhere to get food you can be killed. So people stay in their houses and there is hunger.

“The issue is leadership, from the top down to the community level.”

He expects t he number of malnourished kids to rise sharply this month and next because the summer rainy season will make many roads inaccessible for food supplies.

Famine

The violence and food shortages are driving more than 1,000 people to flee South Sudan every day, according to figures issued by Unicef this week.

Leila Pakkala, the UN agency’s regional director, said: “More than one million children have been forced from their homes in South Sudan, often amid horrific violence.

“Day after day, week after week, they are being received by countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya.

“Despite great efforts on many fronts the systems in these countries are tremendously stretched.”

All this is a far cry from the international euphoria that greeted South Sudan’s declaration of independencependence in 2011 and the end nd of Africa’s longest-runningunning civil war.

It took just two years for the country to descend end into its own civil war as s Dinka forces loyal to Presidentesident Salva Kiir facedd members of the Nuer tribe, supportingorting former er vice presidentdent Riek Machar.har.

The e failurere of the rains last year was the final straw. In February the UN declared a famine in Unity State in the north of the country. At least 100,000 face starvation and five million are in danger. One of the UN’s top officials warned last month that all efforts to save them will be in vain unless the fighting stops. Nyandiar’s fam family have enough food to last a month. After that, Plan has promised to do everything it can to help them. There is only so much anyone can do. When Pla Plan’s staff tried to go back this week, they were unable to get through becausebe of fresh fighting. They will keep trying: it is all they can do. O Only an end to the fig fighting can save South S Sudan f r om t he f famine threatening to overwhelm it.

If you go out to work or to get food you can be killed