South Sudan’s food crisis is the worst in the world, the UN Security Council has warned, calling for urgent action.<\/p>\n
It said there was a “catastrophic food insecurity” in the country, urging donor nations who pledged $618m (\u00a3364m) in aid to make good on their promise.<\/p>\n
The UN children’s fund, Unicef, said some four million – a third of the population – could be affected.<\/p>\n
It said that 50,000 children may die of hunger in the conflict-torn country unless international help increased.<\/p>\n
More than a million people have fled their homes since fighting erupted between different factions of South Sudan’s ruling party last December.<\/p>\n
Thousands have now died in the conflict that started as a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar but has since escalated into ethnic violence.<\/p>\n
Months of fighting have prevented farmers from planting or harvesting crops, causing food shortages nationwide.<\/p>\n
The onset of the rainy season has added to the problem, dashing hopes that displaced farmers plant crops to feed themselves in the future, the BBC’s Rob Broomby reports.<\/p>\n
South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, topped the list of fragile states in this year’s index released by The Fund for Peace, a leading US-based research institute.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Sudan’s food crisis is the worst in the world, the UN Security Council has warned, calling for urgent action. It said there was a “catastrophic food insecurity” in the country, urging donor nations who pledged $618m (\u00a3364m) in aid to make good on their promise. The UN children’s fund, Unicef, said some four million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[14],"yoast_head":"\n