Thousands of people affected by floods in Ayod County of Jonglei State are in dire need of humanitarian aid following months of ravaging floods that have displaced thousands and cut off communities that are now homeless, hungry and without livelihoods.
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim in South Sudan, Arafat Jamal, while addressing the press in Juba last week said the humanitarian situation for the flood-affected communities is dire.
“The humanitarian needs are very acute and very distressing and on one hand all the people we visited were themselves in a bad way but their main worry was about their brothers and sisters whom they think we doing worse way," Jamal said. "They said to us was that they are not doing well but across the river, in four islands there are people stranded and they spoke of a figure of tens of thousands up to 30,000 but I can't verify that figure. These people are getting submerged, although they are surrounded by water they have no water to drink and they are in a bad way."
Ayod County authorities have disclosed that close to 30,000 people have been affected by the floods and are stranded on islands.
"One of the most moving, shocking things for me was that somebody threw a piece of grass on the ground and said this is what we have to eat. I looked at the grass and I smelt it and it looked like grass indeed and he said we have to eat this. when we eat it our stomachs get upset, we fall sick but this is all we have to eat. And to me, that really shows that in the midst of all the suffering it's also human dignity," Jamal recounts.
He pointed out that the floods have caused massive destruction to homes and livelihoods.
Despite the humanitarian response scale-up by MEDAIR in Mogok, Pagil, and Ayod town providing WASH and nutrition services and the Norwegian Refugee Council supporting Mogok payam with non-food items, there are 4 payams with no access to these services including Pajiek, Wau, Padek, Pagil as well as Ayod town.
The Humanitarian Coordinator expressed disappointment on the United Kingdom government for cutting down funds saying communities are hard-hit by such decisions.
“We are seeing direct cuts in South Sudan and it is affecting us,” Jamal stressed.
Jamal and a team from the UN-OCHA, UNHCR, WFP, WHO, IOM, Ambassador of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jonglei State Minister of Physical Infrastructure, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (Juba & Bor), Norweigan Refugee Council NRC (WASH cluster) and the Africa Development Aid (ADA) visited Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity State, and Western Equatoria states.