Number of hungry quadruples in Southern Sudan
February 2, 2010 (JUBA) – The number of people in southern Sudan in need of food assistance has more than quadrupled from almost 1 million in 2009 to 4.3 million this year because of conflict and drought, UN food agencies and Southern Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said today.
“This spike in the number of hungry people in southern Sudan comes just ahead of the rainy season when roads become blocked and communities are cut off from food assistance,” said Leo van der Velden, WFP Sudan Coordinator in the south, adding that WFP is pre-positioning 50,000 metric tons of sorghum, pulses and vegetable oil to feed the millions who may be cut off when the rains start.
WFP plans to assist the hungry for between two and eight months in 2010, depending on how heavy the rainy season is, and the extent of food around in local markets. The aim is to ensure that families have access to sufficient food before the next harvest is due in October and November. WFP will also support school meal programmes for more than 400,000 schoolchildren and provide food for tens of thousands of conflict-affected families, returnees and refugees.
Southern Sudan Agriculture and Forestry Minister Dr. Samson Kwaje said Jonglei State has the highest number in need of food assistance. “Internal conflict and incursions from the Lord’s Resistance Army together with drought have made almost half the population of the South short of food,” he said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, with the assistance of other government and UN agencies, last year carried out an annual assessment that collected information from more than 2,000 households about what people eat, where they get their food from, and how they cope. The assessment covered Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Lakes, Upper Nile, Western Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap.
WFP has a current total shortfall of US $485.4 million to provide food assistance in 2010 to some 11 million people in need of food assistance across all of Sudan, including the South.
(ST)
Dinka Boy
Number of hungry quadruples in Southern Sudan
The insecurity across the Southern States could not allowed them to cultivate.
There are frequent militia employed by Arab North to cause issues in the South and this poverty is one of them. We all know before and during the war that some communities cultivate their crops as well reaing their livestocks.
But there are some comunities who depend soley on raiding and stealing others properties and these are the one which cause insecurity fro those who perform agriculture as source of their lives.
These Militias of Bashier must be hunt down and that will be the solution for civilians to grow their crops.
Thanks