Over US$1.4 Billion Needed for South Sudan Refugees in 2017
- by Arlene Howard
- in Global Media
- — May 17, 2017
The United Nations has urged donor countries to raise their contributions to South Sudanese refugees, saying some Dollars 1.4 billion would be needed to help people out of starvation inside and outside the war-torn country.
The UN and its food-assistance branch, the World Food Programme (WFP), had originally requested $1.2 billion but revised the appeal after deciding the amount would not be enough.
By the start of the 2017 fiscal year, 90,000 South Sudanese refugees had fled to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, two-thirds of whom have been there since conflict started in 2013.
Last month, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 172 people had died across 14 counties in South Sudan since the initial outbreak was reported in June previous year. WFP Executive Director David Beasley, a long-time member of the US Republican Party and former governor of SC, called the suffering "just unimaginable."They are close to the abyss". Violence is at the root of this crisis.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the country since then, with some 1.8 million forced to flee the country, including about one million children, to seek refuge in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. Aid workers often can not reach the most vulnerable hungry people.
The current rate at which people are fleeing South Sudan exceeds the humanitarian community's already pessimistic estimates.
The South Sudanese government and the United Nations stated that 100,000 people are facing starvation, and one million people are classified as being on the brink of famine. "Many are dying from hunger and disease, many more have fled their homeland for safety overseas", Beasley said.
"There are continuing influxes and growing numbers of refugees through the crossing points in the states bordering South Sudan", he noted.
With acute underfunding, humanitarian agencies are struggling to provide food, water, nutrition support, shelter and health services to refugees.
"When we speak with families who have been forced to flee because of the conflict in South Sudan, they tell us they just want to be able to live in peace, to farm their lands and to raise their children", Mahla said.
Beasley, who said he will return to South Sudan later this week, blamed donor nations for focusing on domestic politics instead of global crises.
"We've got to break through all of the smoke" Beasley said, adding, "People aren't receiving the normal information they receive on worldwide crises". "We've got to break through all of the smoke".
