Nearly eight million people in South Sudan at risk of acute hunger: NGOs
Al Jazeera • • world
Key Points:
- A UN report warns that 7.8 million people in South Sudan, or 56% of the population, face acute hunger due to worsening conflict and displacement.
- The number of children aged six months to five years suffering from acute malnutrition has increased by 100,000 in six months, reaching 2.2 million, with 700,000 at risk of death.
- Ongoing fighting has damaged or closed many nutritional services, while supply shortages and funding gaps limit access to life-saving treatments.
- The humanitarian crisis is driven by ethnic conflict, climate change, spillover violence from Sudan, and a deepening economic crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries.
- Renewed clashes between government forces and opposition groups have raised fears of a return to civil war, fueled by tensions between President Salva Kiir and suspended Vice President Riek Machar.
