Conflict-affected people are eating leaves to stay alive in Fashoda County of South Sudan’s Upper Nile state as humanitarian conditions worsen for over 35,000 families who have run out of food, a local leader said.
Philip Lam, head of the Shilluk tribe association, told Radio Tamazuj yesterday that at least 35,000 families at Kodok, Tunga, and the neighbouring villages were in dire conditions after they ran out of food.
Lam said that the citizens survive only by eating leaves of trees amid absence of humanitarian organizations in the area after fighting erupted between government troops and opposition fighters when SPLA Major-General Johnson Olony left the government side.
The leader accused the government of obstructing international NGOs from operating in the area. The government accuses the people who are living in those areas of supporting the rebels, according Lam.
He said the only organization working in Fashoda County in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He called on the international community to intervene by providing help to the conflict-affected people in Fashoda County.
Meanwhile, Manyo County Commissioner Rajab Deng Ajak admitted the SPLA-IO rebels are in the control of Tunga and Fashoda areas.
However, Ajak told Radio Tamazuj that the government is planning to liberate those areas so that services can be provided. He pointed out that the provision of food is the responsibility of the rebels in the areas under their control.
Radio Tamazuj photo: a child is assessed for malnutrition in Fashoda County, Upper Nile state