Famine and war in South Sudan going unnoticed as 12million people on brink of being wiped out
- Aug 30, 2014 20:13
- By Stephen White
- Link to web article here.
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Simon Rawles Desperate: Children in the Malakal IDP camp, South Sudan |
It is the world’s newest country – but many of South Sudan’s 12million people are on the brink of being wiped out.
With the eyes of the world on the escalating violence in the Middle East and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the plight of South Sudan is going almost unnoticed.
Four million people are in desperate need of food and child malnutrition is three times emergency levels.
Almost two million have fled their homes as a result of a civil war, sparked by a political power vacuum, which has killed more than 10,000 people.
Hundreds of thousands have streamed across the fledgling country’s borders to escape.
Thousands of others, many of them women who have been sexually assaulted, shelter in temporary camps.
Three years ago South Sudan’s independence was celebrated and there were hopes for a bright new future... but it has become a humanitarian nightmare after civil war broke out in December.
It is now one of the poorest and most troubled countries in the world.
Famine is not a word aid agencies use lightly.
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Simon Rawles Trouble: Oxfam CEO Mark Goldring talking with Rachel Mugka |
Charities are struggling to raise cash and are battling to reach some of the hardest-hit regions in the north because of heavy rains and fighting between rival tribes.
This week a United Nations Mi-8 cargo helicopter was shot down during a mission to supply aid in the northern oil town of Bentiu.
Three Russian crew members were killed.
The army and the rebels blamed each other for the attack, breaking a ceasefire that had lasted just a day.
More than 45,000 civilians are sheltering in the UN camp in Bentiu.
They are some of more than 100,000 people who have fled to refugee camps to escape the conflict, which has seen widespread violence between the Dinka and the Nuer ethnic groups.
Oil is the greatest source of income but production has all but stopped.
Predictions the economy would grow by 35 per cent this year have turned out to be a pipe dream.
The new country’s economy is said to be “in intensive care”.
So, now, are its people.