‘Super El Niño’ deepens South Sudan hunger crisis, WFP warns

According to UN News, some 7.8 million people, more than half of South Sudan’s population, are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, while 2.2 million children and 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women also require urgent nutrition support.

WFP Assistant Executive Director for Programme Operations Matthew Hollingworth said conflict, displacement, economic hardship, climate shocks and the war in neighbouring Sudan were converging as humanitarian resources ran low.

Without additional funding, another one million vulnerable people could lose access to life-saving food and nutrition assistance by October.

Hollingworth said the impact of what he called “super El Niño” was already evident during his visit to South Sudan last week. Even the country’s most fertile agricultural areas have been affected by drought, resulting in crop failures and low yields.

The effects of El Niño are also being felt in Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, creating wider risks to food security across the region.

South Sudan is also receiving about 3,000 refugees and former South Sudanese refugees returning from Sudan each week as people flee the conflict there.

Hollingworth said many had travelled for days or weeks on foot to reach safety, arriving exhausted and hungry in communities already struggling to provide food, water and shelter.

Aid and commercial food shipments along the River Nile also face illegal checkpoints and illegal taxation by armed personnel, increasing costs and delaying deliveries.

In Malakal, Upper Nile State, food other than locally grown produce has to be flown in because transporting it by road or barge is too expensive, partly due to illegal taxes.

“This is starting not just to raise costs, it’s starting to be a cost in terms of people’s lives,” Hollingworth said.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that cocoa prices rose for a sixth consecutive month in August, gaining 25.5% to $6,771 per metric ton as concerns over supplies in West Africa and the impact of El Niño supported the market.