60 percent of Sudan population facing hunger: UN

JUBA: Roughly 60 percent of South Sudan’s population face severe hunger by the middle of next year, the government and UN agencies warned on Friday, calling for urgent assistance to address the growing crisis.

In a new joint report they also said that 1.4 million children face acute malnutrition in the conflict-ravaged eastern African nation. "The food security situation and nutrition situation has deteriorated," Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics, said in the capital Juba as he released the country’s latest hunger assessment.

"This is because of pockets of insecurity that have led to population displacement, low crop production because of climate shocks such as floods and drought," he said, also pointing to the Covid-19 pandemic, an economic crisis, desert locust infestation and "inadequate" humanitarian aid. UN-backed assessments use a ranking called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which rates hunger levels from one to five.