As prices of essential commodities rise due to a combination of poor harvest and hyperinflation, many poor families teeter on the edge in Jur River County, Western Bahr el Ghazal State.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, several parents in Jur River County said they are struggling to feed their families amid soaring inflation.
Andrea Cirillo, a resident of Alur Payam, said: “People are now depending on wild fruits. We are surviving on wild fruits. Maize was brought here but was not enough.”
He added,” Maize was brought here for sale but did nothing because the population is very high in Alur. We want intervention with the relief food because last year, people did not cultivate due to floods.”
Meanwhile, Joseph Ungom, a resident of Mapel town, said life has become unbearable in Jur River County due high prices of essential commodities in the market.
“Life is becoming hard. Things are very expensive in the market. If you go to the market and ask the price of maize, you will get it at 4,000 SSP. So this makes lives very difficult,” he said.
“People have resorted to eating wild fruits to stay alive. So the situation has become unbearable here,” he added.
For his part, the commissioner of Jur River County, James Bak Nyiyuo, confirmed that many families were starving to a poor harvest last year and the high cost of living in the county.
“The harvest of last year was very poor due to climate change. There was heavy rainfall and people started to cultivate late. For example, in Manyang, there was totally nothing harvested from the farms,” Nyiyuo said.
“I want to tell you now that one malwa of dura is 3,500 SSP and groundnut costs 2,500 SSP and civilians are just surviving in this situation but our government had donated some maize at affordable prices. We divided the food into payams though it was not enough. We distributed it to 15 payams of Jur River County,” he said.
“It was not enough but it has placed a smile on the faces of our people for one week. As a county, we don’t have the power to do something, but I am telling the humanitarian organizations that in the period ahead, especially in July, the situation will be worst. So let them help the needy people in the county,” he added.
Western Bahr el Ghazal State and other parts of South Sudan have experienced abnormally high levels of rainfall and flooding in recent years.