The Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that South Sudan is “a forgotten conflict” in the face of a “humanitarian crisis” exacerbated by the pandemic, while the UN chief warned that 60% of the world’s newest nation “is becoming increasingly hungry. “
South Sudan has struggled to recover from a five-year war that, according to a study, killed nearly 400,000 people. A coalition government formed last year between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar is implementing a peace deal on schedule, while deadly violence continues in parts of the country.
The ICRC’s Robert Mardini, who visited South Sudan last week, called it “one of the most complex humanitarian crises anywhere.”
And he said “now alarmingly we are seeing severe food shortages and a largely insignificant prevalence of COVID-19 which is making an already catastrophic situation even worse.” Although hostilities between the main parties may have ceased or diminished, Mardini told the Associated Press (AP) that “fighting with smaller parties and divisions and between communities unfortunately continues to cause death, destruction and expulsion.”
By doing rounds at Akabo County Hospital in the eastern state of Jonglei, which serves close to 200,000 people, Mardini said he saw several people recovering from the shooting, including children. He said they were victims of violence between the municipalities that is endemic to the country and the result of historical rivalries, often over cattle and land but sometimes over political agendas orchestrated from the capital.
Other patients’ injuries were much less obvious because they were victims of rape and sexual abuse, which has increased in the conflict, and there were several children being treated for malnutrition, some for malaria at the same time, Mardini said in an online interview from Switzerland on Wednesday.
“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg,” Mardini said. “Our latest assessment shows that last year’s harvest was about half of what it was the year before in nine of the ten countries’ states. “And this fragility is due not only to conflict but to the impact of the current crisis and catastrophes of an epic scale, most recently last year’s floods that affected over one million people, and Jonglei State was one of the worst affected,” he said.
Mardini said Red Cross workers on the ground see that many communities, especially those whose people have been displaced, have little or no access to food, safe drinking water or care.
“There is little doubt that the current crisis is slipping into something much more frightening,” Mardini warned. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday about conflict-torn hunger that in South Sudan “chronic” sporadic violence, extreme weather and the economic effects of COVID-19 have driven more than 7 million people to acute food security, “the highest level since the country declared independence from Sudan 10 years ago.
Food prices are so high, Guterres said, “that just one plate of rice and beans costs more than 180% of the average daily wage – equivalent to about $ 400 here in New York.” World Food Programs chief executive David Beasley told the council he was visiting the country’s western Pibor counties in early February and heard in recent days that “in extreme circumstances, mothers resort to feeding their children with dead animal skin – or even mud.”
“This is a desperate situation that requires urgent attention,” he said. The locals call 2021 “the year of famine”. And their suffering is the result of a widespread conflict and the unprecedented floods that came in 2019 and 2020. These people are in the crossfire of conflicts while bearing the burden of the climate crisis. The ICRC’s Mardini said the solutions to South Sudan’s humanitarian crisis must come from its leaders “and the commitment to lasting peace”, but even then the road to recovery and development will be long and urgent humanitarian needs must be addressed now.
The United Nations has immediately pledged $ 5.5 billion to avoid several famines affecting 34 million people in more than three dozen countries, including South Sudan. On Friday, the Security Council is expected to extend the mandate of the nearly 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan by one year.
The draft resolution states that its mandate will be “to promote a three-year strategic vision to prevent a return to civil war”, to build peace at national and local level and to “support inclusive and responsible governance and free, fair and peaceful elections.”
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