South Sudan's civil war puts 5 million at risk of ethnic violence and famine
Women walk for miles, barefoot down muddy tracks, to come to malnutrition clinics. They carry with them listless and emaciated children. In this small part of Jonglei state, more than a quarter of children are thought to be severely malnourished – well above crisis levels. In areas where conflict is fiercer, life is harder still. At one clinic, Nyapuoch, a mother who fled the fighting in Malakal and walked for days to reach safety, has nothing to eat and nowhere to stay.
"It is hunger and sickness that are really killing people and making us suffer now," she says, her thin arms wrapped round the twin baby girls sitting quietly in her lap. Her daughters are getting treatment for malnutrition, but thousands more are growing increasingly desperate as they wait for food assistance. The crisis in South Sudan, where thousands of people have been slaughtered and more than a million displaced, is now greater than that endured by Darfur or the Central African Republic, a senior UN diplomat cautioned on Friday. Almost five million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance as a result of ethnic violence that began in December after President Salva Kiir accused his vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting his overthrow.
Jonglei has been hit hard by the conflict, fought over by both sides and now divided into opposition- and government-held areas. As a result, more than 200,000 people in Jonglei are displaced, meaning they cannot sow seeds in this crucial planting season ahead of the rains. Getting in supplies of everything from food to petrol has become a major challenge.
In the market in Akobo, South Sudanese and Ethiopian traders vie for business, piling up their small pyramids of grain ready to sell. But no one is buying. The price of sorghum, a staple food in this area, has tripled in the past six months because traders have to take a circuitous route to bring their goods in. Many people, having lost their livelihoods in that time, cannot afford to buy it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/south-sudans-civil-war-puts-5-million-at-risk-of-ethnic-violence-and-famine-9391340.html