8/7/2025–|Last update: 16:31 (Mecca time)
The World Food Program has started carrying out air projection operations for food aid in the state of Upper Nile in southern Sudan, in response to the deteriorating conditions in its unarmed areas since last March.
These operations were able to deliver aid to more than 40,000 people in Nasser and Olang provinces, in the first humanitarian intervention that arrives in those areas 4 months ago, after clashes hindered land access to them.
In the context, the regional director of the program, Marie-Eline McGurry, said that the ongoing conflict exacerbated food insecurity, stressing the need for urgent action to avoid further deterioration.
According to the program’s estimates, about a million people on the top of the Nile face sharp levels of hunger, including about 32,000 who live in conditions classified within the fifth stage, which is the highest according to the “integrated phased classification of food security”.
The number of those in need has also increased since the outbreak of the conflict, which led to internal displacement, and about 50,000 people have escaped to the neighboring Ethiopia.
Provide challenges and financing scarcity
The Food Program hopes to deliver aid to about 470,000 people in the states of the Upper Nile and North Jonglei during the continuous season of need until August. But the closure of the river passages and the escalation of the fighting impedes complete access to the target groups.
The program has provided its assistance so far to about 300 thousand people, while it maintains 1500 metric tons of ready -made foodstuffs as soon as safe transport conditions are available.
These efforts come within a broader response to the food crisis that threatens the lives of about 7.7 million people in South Sudan, including 2.3 million children at the risk of severe malnutrition.
In light of the decline in funding, the program was forced to reduce food rations, to cover only about 2.5 million people in need.
The program needs additional financing of $ 274 million to ensure its continued operations until the end of this year.
(Tagstotranslate) News (T) Politics (T) Africa (T) South Sudan