Geneva: UNITED Nations Emergency relief chief has said the South Sudanese people are suffering “on an imaginable scale” as famine and civil war stalks the country.
“Things are still getting worse,” said Mark Lowcock, who is also the UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Lowcock said five years of civil war had left 7.1 million people, or more than half the country’s population, in need of humanitarian aid.
Reports say desperate South Sudanese have resorted to eating grass the hunger situation spirals out of control.
Repeated negotiations have broken down to resolve fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar, including recent peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, held under the auspices of the African regional forum, IGAD.
Foreign Governments, including the combined countries of the European Union, are also seeking to improve safety for humanitarian workers and get the “men with guns to behave differently”, the UN official said, adding that despite the insecurity, aid workers still managed to reach “about 2 million people” in the last month.
Source: Reliefweb and AllNetAfrica
