South Sudan hungry ‘quadruples in a year’
February 2, 2010
The number of people needing food aid in south Sudan has quadrupled in a year to more than four million, the UN’s World Food Programme says.
The WFP wants to ensure the people have enough food to last until their next harvest in October.
Southern Sudan’s agriculture minister Samson Kwaje blamed the surge on internal conflict and drought.
The region is recovering from a two-decade civil war and remains one of the least developed parts of the world.
Although the civil war with the north ended in 2005, some 2,500 people died in conflicts between rival communities in Southern Sudan last year - far more than in Darfur, the UN says.
Mr Kwaje blamed the hunger on those internal conflicts, as well as incursions by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, originally based in Uganda but which now marauds across several countries.
The WFP’s Leo van der Velden said: “This spike in the number of hungry people in Southern Sudan comes just ahead of the rainy season when roads become blocked and communities are cut off from food assistance.”
Tension is escalating in Sudan before elections due in April - seen as the first national multi-party elections in 24 years.
Source: bbc.co.uk/
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