More than 650,000 refugees and asylum seekers in South Sudan risk losing access to food aid within weeks because of a severe funding shortfall, the United Nations warned on Friday.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said South Sudan was facing one of the world’s worst hunger crises, with more than 7.8 million people, or over half the population, experiencing acute food insecurity and 2.2 million children acutely malnourished.
South Sudan is also receiving about 3,000 refugees and returnees each week from neighbouring Sudan, where a conflict that began in 2023 has created one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
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The last food distributions for the most vulnerable 240,000 refugees in South Sudan are expected in September unless urgent funding is secured, the UN agencies said.
The 240,000 are the last remaining refugees receiving food assistance, which has already been reduced to half-rations after WFP scaled back aid because of funding constraints.
“This is not a future scenario. It is sadly a reality that will hold within weeks,” WFP Deputy Country Director in South Sudan Adham Effendi told reporters in Juba.
UNHCR Deputy Representative Mesfin Degefu said that if funding was not secured, no refugees in South Sudan would receive food assistance from October.
Families are already reducing meals, selling belongings, withdrawing children from school and taking on debt to survive, Degefu said. Women and children also face increased risks of exploitation and abuse.
Some refugees have asked UNHCR to help facilitate their return to Sudan, although the agency says conditions there are not safe for return.
WFP needs $37 million to maintain refugee operations between October and December. From October, food assistance for about 180,000 internally displaced people is expected to end, while about 600,000 people in famine-risk areas could lose life-saving support by November, Effendi said.
UNHCR said it had received only 28 per cent of the $286 million required for its operations in South Sudan this year, threatening programmes designed to help refugees become self-reliant through farming, vocational training and other livelihood activities.
