Conflict-affected people are eating leaves to stay alive in Melut County of South Sudan’s Upper Nile state as humanitarian conditions worsen for over 7,600 families.
Deng Kiir, leader of the Dethoma camp, told Radio Tamazuj yesterday people from Baliet and Twic East counties fled to the area but are now in dire conditions after they ran out of food over the last five months.
Kiir said 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 Major General Johnson Olony left the government in May.
He called upon the government and humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to the displaced families.
Radio Tamazuj has earlier reported that President Salva Kiir’s Chief of General Staff Paul Malong ordered a blockade of food barges to Upper Nile state.
Radio Tamazuj Photo: A man in Dablual, southern Unity state holds leaves used as food.
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SPLA ‘regrets inconvenience’ of aid blockade (3 Aug.)