An estimated 40,000 people in southern and central Unity may be facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity and malnutrition from October to December, the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
“Catastrophic” levels of food insecurity is the same classification as famine.
Citing the latest latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, unless unrestricted humanitarian access is urgently granted, food insecurity could deteriorate to famine in parts of Unity State, such as Leer, Guit, Koch and Mayendit, OCHA said.
Fighting has prevented aid groups from reaching most of southern Unity state for months. The regional monitoring group IGAD blamed the latest violence in southern Unity on government forces, who launched a scorched Earth offensive in the state earlier this year.
Radio Tamazuj previously reported that the government was deliberately starving civilians out of rebel areas in the state.
OCHA said an estimated 3.9 million people, or 34 per cent of the population, were severely food insecure in September 2015, according to the IPC report, an 80 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.
Some two-thirds of the affected people are in Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile States.
Photo: Child in Ganyiel, Unity State, April 2014 – International Rescue Committee (IRC)/World Food Programme (WFP)
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