Famine has been declared in some parts of South Sudan on February 20. This declaration is based on the highest level on the IPC scale* of food insecurity. It is only called out in the worst case scenario, where more than 20% of the families face acute food shortage and the death rate of children under five is higher than four deaths per 10,000 children a day. In some other parts of South Sudan, humanitarian actors talk of deaths of starvation and the urgent need of food and agricultural assistance. Terre des hommes brings emergency help to children and their families before famine extends to the whole country.
“We act now to help families going hungry in Yei and Juba, because if we wait for the famine to be declared in these southern cities, too many children will already have died due to starvation”, says Steve Ringel, emergency desk at Terre des hommes.
In Yei – a major farming zone in the country – 100,000 people are trapped within the town. They are cut off from their lands due to the armed conflict that reached their area last September. Indeed, government troops hold Yei and control the main roads, while the rebels surround the city. Harvesting in Yei had already been impossible last year due to the insecurity of the conflict and now planting new seeds this spring will be very difficult due to the blockage and inaccessibility of their lands.
Drinkable water prices have also raised and families in war-affected areas face dramatic choices. A mother told us that in order to buy water, there was no other choice “than to severely cut back on food”. She claims that “with some seeds and tools, I could go plant and harvest my own vegetables within the city gardens”.
Accessing the besieged town by air, we work with vulnerable families to fight against hunger. We distribute seeds and tools, and create cash-for-work opportunities to support local worker’s power purchase for basic needs. We help families getting out of the vicious circle of malnutrition, of which already more than 270,000 children are suffering, and prevent famine to spread to the whole country.
A famine starts quietly: it can be a shortage of food that puts children at the risk of acute malnutrition or a bad harvest due to drought that affects particularly farmer families. This situation turns into an emergency when it is combined with war that affects the population’s livelihoods such as in South Sudan. The UN states that 4.9 million people in South Sudan are severely food insecure and the tendency will be increasing, which puts the whole country at risk of famine.
*Integrated Food Security Phase Classification