Story highlights UN declares famine in South Sudan's Unity state

More than 1 million children across the country are suffering from acute malnutrition, UNICEF warns

(CNN) Famine in South Sudan has left 100,000 people on the verge of starvation and almost 5 million people, more than 40% of the country's population, in need of urgent help, aid agencies say.

People are already dying of hunger, and another 1 million people are on the brink of famine, UN agencies said.

Years of civil war, a refugee crisis and a collapsing economy have taken their toll on South Sudan since it gained its independence in 2011.

Now the UN World Food Programme and nongovernmental organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that more than a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive."

Read More </s> The world faces its largest humanitarian crisis since 1945 with over 20 million people in four countries facing starvation and famine, the United Nations has said.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien called for an immediate injection of funds for South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria.

"To be precise, we need $4.4 billion by July," Mr O'Brien told the UN Security Council on Friday.

Mr O'Brien said the largest humanitarian crisis is in Yemen where two-thirds of the population - 18.8 million people - need aid.

"More than seven million don't know where their next meal will come from,"

"That is three million more chronically hungry people than in January," he added.
• South Sudan situation "worse than it has ever been"

In South Sudan, the world's newest country, the situation "is worse than it has ever been," the humanitarian chief said.

The world's newest country, which has been blighted by a three-year civil war and economic turmoil, is in the grip of the world's first famine for six years.

The UN has warned 100,000 people face starvation with a further 1 million at risk.

According to Unicef, more than 270,000 children are suffering severe malnutrition in South Sudan.

ITV News Africa correspondent John Ray recently visited the country and witnessed first-hand the human cost of the famine.

In northeast Nigeria, more than 20,000 people have been killed during a seven-year uprising by the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group.

The conflict has also driven an estimated 2.6 million from their homes.

In February, a UN humanitarian coordinator said malnutrition in the northeast is so pronounced that some communities many young children have died.

Meanwhile, in Somalia, which Mr O'Brien also visited, more than half the population 6.2 million people are said to need humanitarian assistance and protection

This includes 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate help "to save or sustain their lives," he said.

Mr O'Brien also warned that close to one million children under the age of five will be "acutely malnourished" this year.

"To be clear, we can avert a famine," O'Brien said.

"We're ready despite incredible risk and danger ... but we need those huge funds now."

ITV News International Affairs Editor Rageh Omaar has visited Somaliland - which gained independence from the rest of the country in 1991 - where a severe drought has brought it to crisis. </s> War-torn South Sudan needs $205m ( £164m) to cope until July with a man-made famine, the World Food Programme (WFP) has told IBTimes UK. More than one million people are facing famine in Unity State, the South Sudanese government and the United Nations warned on 20 January, with another 100,000 people facing starvation.

This is the first time that a famine has been declared in any part of the world in six years.

"With many other areas of the country on the brink of a hunger catastrophe, we need to scale up support to families and maintain regular and consistent assistance for them," Challiss McDonough, senior regional spokesperson for WFP in Kenya said.

"But WFP is extremely concerned that we do not have enough resources to continue this response for the whole year. Without a substantial injection of funds, we could run out of food by end of June."

Fears that lack of funds might hinder an appropriate response resonates with other humanitarian organisations on the ground.

"The situation facing children who were already hungry and going without meals is now rapidly unravelling. If aid funding and deliveries are not immediately scaled up we should expect to see children facing a catastrophe and starvation and migration to find food on a massive scale". Perry Mansfield, National Director for World Vision in South Sudan, told IBTimes UK.

"The rainy season is only weeks away and once that arrives the roads become impassable meaning that millions of people will be cut off from aid. We have a small and rapidly closing window of opportunity to get food into these remote areas, to preposition it, before it is too late," he continued.

The South Sudan conflict erupted in 2013 when President Salva Kiir, of the Dinka ethnic group, fired his deputy Riek Machar, who then became a rebel leader, from the Nuer group.

Ethnic-related violence targeting Dinka and Nuer has killed an estimated 50,000 people, amid allegations of crimes against humanity committed by both sides, including rape, torture and the use of child soldiers.

At least 1.5m people have fled to other countries. The exodus has been deemed "Africa's worst refugee crisis".

More than 2m are internally displaced as the country is on the verge of a Rwanda-style genocide.

People are fleeing violence leaving their crops to rot in the fields. In addition, the heavy rainy season has made some roads inaccessible hindering food deliverance.

Many fear hunger will deepen as the conflict has spilled into the Equatoria region, considered one of South Sudan's breadbaskets.

The UN has now appealed for $1.6 bn (£1.2bn) to provide life-saving assistance and protection to 5.8 million people across the country.

"WFP's severe resourcing shortfalls extend to neighbouring countries where South Sudanese refugees have sought shelter in the last three years," McDonough said. She added that the $205m will cover just the humanitarian response in South Sudan, while more funds are needed to help refugees.

Kiir and Machar have agreed on several peace deals – the last of which was signed in August 2015 – but have failed to control their troops, who have broken every ceasefire since 2014.

Machar fled South Sudan following deadly fighting in the capital Juba in July 2016.

He is currently in South Africa seeking medical treatment, but in an exclusive talk with IBTimes UK said he was ready "to go home".

His wife, Angelina Teny, also a member of SPLM-IO, told IBTimes UK she believes her husband can contribute to achieving peace in the war-torn nation which is on the verge of a Rwanda-style genocide. </s> THE world faces the largest humanitarian crisis since the United Nations was founded in 1945, the UN’s humanitarian chief has warned.

Stephen O’Brien told the UN Security Council that over 20 million people in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria are facing starvation and famine.

He said that “without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death” and “many more will suffer and die from disease”.

He urged an immediate injection of funds for the four countries plus safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid “to avert a catastrophe”.

“To be precise, we need $4.4bn (£3.6bn) by July,” said Mr O’Brien.

Without the money, he said, children will be stunted by severe malnutrition, gains in economic development will be reversed and “livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost”.

UN and food organisations define famine as when more than 30% of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition and mortality rates are two or more deaths per 10,000 people every day, among other criteria.

Mr O’Brien said the largest humanitarian crisis is in Yemen where two-thirds of the population – 18.8 million people – need aid and more than seven million people are hungry.

The Arab world’s poorest nation is engulfed in conflict and the UN says more than 48,000 people have fled fighting just in the past two months.

South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, has been ravaged by a three-year civil war and more then 7.5 million people are in need aid.

“The famine in South Sudan is man-made,” said Mr O’Brien. “Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine – as are those not intervening to make the violence stop.”

In Somalia more than half the population – 6.2 million people – need humanitarian assistance, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate help “to save or sustain their lives”.

“What I saw and heard during my visit to Somalia was distressing – women and children walk for weeks in search of food and water. They have lost their livestock, water sources have dried up and they have nothing left to survive on,” Mr O’Brien said.

In northeast Nigeria, a seven-year uprising by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has killed over 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes.

A UN humanitarian coordinator said that malnutrition in the northeast is so pronounced that some adults are too weak to walk and some communities have lost all their toddlers. news.sky.com </s> South Sudan on Monday declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly 5 million hungry in what aid groups called a “man-made” tragedy.

Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics, 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 threaten to affect a further 1 million people in the coming months.

“A formal famine declaration means people have already started dying of hunger. The situation is the worst hunger catastrophe since fighting erupted more than three years ago,” said a statement by the World Food Programme (WFP),UNICEF and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

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 against him.

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, engulfing other ethnic groups and grievances.

The United Nations 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 flash-points in the conflict 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 going hungry, Aruai said.

That figure represents 42 percent of the country’s population.

The famine classification is made according to an internationally recognized sliding scale of hunger in which an extreme lack of food has led to starvation and death.

“The main tragedy of the report that has been launched today … is that the problem is man-made,” said Eugene Owusu, the United Nation’s humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan.

“The underlining drivers have been there for some time and we have all known that we have a major food crisis.”

He said conflict and insecurity for humanitarian workers, who had suffered attacks while carrying out their work, and the looting of “humanitarian assets” had exacerbated the crisis.

In September, several aid agencies had to pull out of the famine-hit area of Leer because of escalating fighting between the two forces.

“I would like to use this opportunity to call on the government, the warring parties and all actors to support humanitarians to provide the necessary access so we can continue to bring lifesaving services to those in need,” Owusu said.

According to aid groups, the number of people facing hunger is expected to rise to 5.5 million at the height of the lean season in July if nothing is done to curb the spread of the food crisis.

“Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive,” said the FAO’s representative in South Sudan, Serge Tissot.

“The people are predominantly farmers and war has disrupted agriculture. They’ve lost their livestock, even their farming tools. For months there has been a total reliance on whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch.”

The famine declaration comes as millions across the Horn of Africa are going hungry due to a devastating drought following two failed rainy seasons.

The U.N. said Monday it is “scaling up assistance and protection” in Somalia, as about 6.2 million Somalis, or half the country’s population, is in need of humanitarian assistance.

Nearly 1 million children will be acutely malnourished.

“The drought situation is deteriorating rapidly,” said Peter de Clercq, the humanitarian coordinator for Somalia. “Accelerated scale-up … assistance is required to avoid a dramatic rise in the number of malnourished children and a spike in mortality.”

Famine last hit the region six years ago, killing an estimated 260,000 people in Somalia.

The drought has also affected food security in South Sudan, however the biggest contributor to the famine is the inability of aid agencies to reach areas where the economy has collapsed due to the war. </s> In this photo taken Oct. 19, 2016 and released by UNICEF, a young girl who fled fighting in nearby Leer in recent months, queues for food aid at a food distribution made by the World Food Programme in Bentiu, South Sudan. Famine has been declared Monday in two counties of South Sudan, according to an announcement by the South Sudan government and three U.N. agencies, which says the calamity is the result of prolonged civil war and an entrenched economic crisis that has devastated the war-torn East African nation. (Kate Holt/UNICEF via AP) </s> Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to an announcement by the South Sudan government and three UN agencies, which says the calamity is the result of prolonged civil war and an entrenched economic crisis that has devastated the war-torn East African nation.

The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan's three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir's government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.

More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears it will spread as an additional one million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, said the announcement.

"The concern is not just about the 100,000 civilians that are facing famine at the moment," said Al Jazeera's Hiba Morgan, reporting from Juba. "There are about one million more people that are on the brink of famine.

"Also, one out of every three households in South Sudan is currently facing food insecurity."

READ MORE: South Sudan spends budget on fighting as people starve

"Our worst fears have been realised," said Serge Tissot, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization in South Sudan.

He said the war has disrupted the otherwise fertile country, causing civilians to rely on "whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch".

'Man-made famine'

Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 percent of South Sudan's population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, said the report.

It added that nearly three-quarters of all households in the country suffer from inadequate food.

If food aid does not reach children urgently "many of them will die," said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children's agency in South Sudan.

Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished Hopkins said, meaning they are at risk of death.

It is not the first time South Sudan has experienced starvation. When it fought for independence from Sudan in 1998, the territory suffered from a famine spurred by civil war.

Anywhere from 70,000 to several hundred thousand people died during that famine. But Monday's declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan's creation, and a UN official blamed the country's politicians for the humanitarian crisis.

"This famine is man-made," said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Programme in South Sudan. "There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security."

"This famine is not caused by draught, it is not caused by floods," Al Jazeera's Morgan said. "It is basically caused by the conflict which resulted in a collapsing economy."

"The conflict made it impossible for many people to farm, especially in the equatorial regions, which was previously stable until the conflict broke out in July."

Nowhere else has civil war caused such a drastic decline in South Sudan's food security than in Central Equatoria state, according to the report.

WATCH: South Sudan aid - Many in desperate need of food (2:21)

Traditionally South Sudan's breadbasket, Central Equatoria has been hit by fighting and ethnically targeted killings that began in July 2016 and have displaced over half a million residents and disrupted agricultural production.

South Sudan's widespread hunger has been compounded by an economic crisis, as well. South Sudan is experiencing severe inflation, which has made food unaffordable for many families.

"There is 800 percent inflation in this country at the moment, food market prices have become unaffordable for a lot of people," Al Jazeera's Morgan said.

When The Associated Press news agency visited the western town of Aweil in September, the price of food had risen ten-fold in the previous 12 months.

Although it is not as significant as the effects of war and inflation, some of South Sudan's hunger crisis is the direct result of the government's action.

South Sudanese government officials have blocked or placed constraints on the delivery of food aid to areas of the country, according to a UN official who insisted on anonymity because of lack of authorisation to speak to the media.

But Al Jazeera's Morgan said the reason behind the lack of humanitarian access is a lot complicated.

"There is fighting between the government and various armed groups," she said.

"So it is quite hard to bring humanitarian aid to the areas affected by this famine. Humanitarian organisations do not know who is operating some parts of the country at any given time, they don't know how to communicate with people in charge, and this causes some kind of a barrier for humanitarian aid."

South Sudan's rural demographics is also an obstacle in front of food aid, Morgan said.

"Most civilians are basically in the bush, most of South Sudan's population, 70 percent, is in the bush. It is very hard for the aid to reach these people."

On Monday, the UN agencies said that unimpeded humanitarian access "is urgently needed".

Tens of thousands of people have died since civil war broke out in December 2013, and the UN warns that South Sudan is at risk of genocide.

Since fighting in the capital of Juba killed hundreds of people in July, the war has uprooted more than three million people.

UN officials have contested that hunger in South Sudan is even more shocking because of the country's fertile land conditions. During her farewell briefing in November as head of the UN mission, Ellen Loj said that South Sudan has the resources and climate to feed itself.

"When I am flying up country, I am always surprised to see all that fertile land and there is not anything," Loj said.

"You could feed yourself plenty and I hope peace will come to South Sudan." </s> People are already dying of hunger, and another 1 million people are on the brink of famine, UN agencies said.

Years of civil war, a refugee crisis and a collapsing economy have taken their toll on South Sudan since it gained its independence in 2011.

Now the UN World Food Programme and nongovernmental organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that more than a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive."

Famine has gripped parts of #SouthSudan. Nearly 5M men, women and kids need food, agriculture & nutrition assistance https://t.co/KqFxZnqLtg pic.twitter.com/gOZeYXKZiB — World Food Programme (@WFP) February 20, 2017 The war has disrupted farming and left people with little choice but to scavenge for food to survive. "People have been pushed to the brink, [they are] surviving on what they can find to eat in swamps," said Emma Jane Drew, Oxfam's humanitarian program manager in South Sudan. "Vulnerable people, out of reach of life-saving assistance due to the conflict, are paying the ultimate price," she added in a statement. Drew said the famine was "a man-made tragedy" and called for an end to the fighting so aid could get through to those most in need. #SouthSudan: People pushed to the brink of survival as #famine hits, women & children worst affected: https://t.co/NHHQ3CVunq pic.twitter.com/E3W3IavlSA — Oxfam International (@Oxfam) February 20, 2017 George Fominyen, the UN food program spokesman in South Sudan's capital, Juba, said the problem had been building for years. "It has not been sudden," he said. "Food insecurity, hunger, malnutrition has been getting steadily worse since the conflict started three years ago." Fomiyen said humanitarian groups had found it extremely difficult to reach the hardest-hit areas. "We have to talk to 10 to 15 people and ask if it's possible to send a team there," he said. "You cannot just access these places without prior agreement." Fomiyen said the program's food supplies will run out unless it can secure "a substantial injection of funds" -- $205 million -- within the next six months. "We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources," he said. "We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle." Last week the United Nations warned that 1.5 million people had fled South Sudan , crossing the border into Uganda to escape the fighting in their homeland, and creating Africa's biggest refugee crisis. Soldiers killed dad in front of his daughter Soldiers killed dad in front of his daughter Nasir Abel Fernandes, senior emergency coordinator for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said Ugandan refugee camps are filling up with desperate South Sudanese citizens "More attention needs to be paid to South Sudan," Fernandes said. "The leaders really should be asked to take responsibility and stop this killing of civilians." South Sudan is the world's newest country. It gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, after years of civil war. But after two years of relative peace, trouble broke out between President Salva Kiir's mainly Dinka army and the Nuer people of his former deputy Riek Machar. Since July 2016 that fighting has intensified to draw in other ethnic groups and render the countryside, including the formerly agriculturally rich Equatoria region, a permanent war zone that has been producing refugees instead of food. </s> UN says world faces worst humanitarian crisis since 1945 with tens of millions starving

The world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, with more than 20 million people in four countries facing starvation and famine, the United Nations humanitarian chief says.

Stephen O'Brien told the UN Security Council on Friday that "without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death" and "many more will suffer and die from disease".

He urged an immediate injection of funds for Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria plus safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid "to avert a catastrophe", describing the current situation as a "critical point" in history.

"To be precise," Mr O'Brien said, "we need $US4.4 billion by July".

Without a major infusion of money, he said, children will be stunted by severe malnutrition and will not be able to go to school, gains in economic development will be reversed and "livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost".

UN and food organisations define famine as when more than 30 percent of children younger than five suffer from acute malnutrition, and when mortality rates are two or more deaths per 10,000 people every day, among other criteria.

"Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine."

Mr O'Brien said the largest humanitarian crisis is in Yemen where two-thirds of the population — some 18.8 million people — need urgent food aid.

"That is 3 million people more than in January," he said.

The Arab world's poorest nation is engulfed in conflict and Mr O'Brien said more than 48,000 people fled fighting just in the past two months.

During his recent visit to Yemen, Mr O'Brien said he met senior leaders of the Government and the Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa, and all promised access for aid.

"Yet all parties to the conflict are arbitrarily denying sustained humanitarian access and politicise aid," he said.

Mr O'Brien warned that if behaviour doesn't change now, those parties "must be held accountable for the inevitable famine, unnecessary deaths and associated amplification in suffering that will follow."

The UN humanitarian chief also visited South Sudan, the world's newest nation which has been ravaged by a three-year civil war, and said "the situation is worse than it has ever been".

"The famine in South Sudan is man-made," he said.

"Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine as are those not intervening to make the violence stop."

Mr O'Brien said more than 7.5 million people need aid, up by 1.4 million from last year, and about 3.4 million South Sudanese were displaced by fighting including almost 200,000 who have fled the country since January.

"More than 1 million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished across the country, including 270,000 children who face the imminent risk of death should they not be reached in time with assistance," he said.

"Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak that began in June 2016 has spread to more locations."

In Somalia, which Mr O'Brien also visited, more than half the population of 6.2 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate help "to save or sustain their lives".

He warned that close to 1 million children under the age of five will be "acutely malnourished" this year.

In north-east Nigeria, a seven-year uprising by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes.

A UN humanitarian coordinator said last month that malnutrition in the north-east is so pronounced that some adults are too weak to walk and some communities have lost all their toddlers.
More than 4.9 million people in South Sudan are in need of aid due to a famine.