Tens of thousands of South Sudanese are on brink of starvation
LONDON (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, with many living in swamps and surviving on water lilies and goat bones, a senior aid worker said.
A hunger crisis affecting an estimated 4.8 million people could turn catastrophic unless aid is urgently provided, warned Mercy Corps country director Deepmala Mahla.
“The situation is dire,” she told Reuters. “There are 40,000 people at risk of dying due to hunger, and numbers could go up very quickly if we don’t get our act together. It doesn’t take much time for a crisis to become a catastrophe. It’s a race against time.”
Vegetable traders in the capital Juba are now cutting tomatoes in half for customers who can no longer afford to buy a whole tomato, Mahla said.
The crisis has been fueled by nearly three years of war which has uprooted more than two million people, killed thousands and disrupted markets. Inflation is at 661%, the highest rate in the world, she said.
The fighting pits supporters loyal to President Salva Kiir Mayardit against allies of his former deputy, Riek Machar. The pair signed a shaky peace deal a year ago, but the violence has continued.
Mahla said the difficulties of delivering aid in a country the size of France with just 200 km. of paved roads were compounded by increasing assaults on aid workers.
Aid workers in South Sudan were subjected to more attacks than in any other country last year. Those attacks included shootings, rapes and mass looting. At least 57 aid workers have been killed since the end of 2013, and many more are missing.
Mahla said a horrifying attack on a residential complex in Juba in July sent shock waves through the humanitarian community. During a four-hour rampage, armed men killed one person, gang-raped others and staged mock executions.
“The risk to aid workers has never been higher,” she said. “Intrusions into compounds are common. We’re living in constant fear. After the attack in July nobody could sleep. It could have been any one of us. But while we grieve for our colleagues we are pushing forward, perhaps with an even stronger resolve.”
She called on all parties to ensure that aid agencies can operate in safety and said the attacks were depriving those most vulnerable in the country of help.
“There have been promises on protecting aid workers in the past. Those have been broken multiple times, please don’t break them any more,” she said in an interview in London late on Monday.
Across South Sudan many people have been uprooted multiple times, leaving them unable to farm their land. A third of children are out of school, with girls being pulled out first to be married off in exchange for cows, Mahla said
Mercy Corps has provided shelter supplies, water, sanitation and education to the displaced and helped families re-establish livelihoods when they returned home.
Mahla said the worst of the hunger is in the south of Unity State where people have moved deep into swamp areas.
“People have been surviving for weeks, maybe months, just eating water lilies. People are also cooking goat skin and bones because there is nothing else,” she said.
Mahla said the hunger crisis was a tragedy in a country as fertile as South Sudan. With the right support, it should not only be able to feed everyone but also earn money from exports.
“It breaks my heart because this country has so much potential,” she said. “There’s huge scope for agriculture. South Sudanese honey, hibiscus tea and coffee could be in the supermarkets in London. The potential is very much there. But these things are not possible if people are always running for their lives.”