Almost a quarter of people in South Sudan are in urgent need of food assistance, three United Nations organizations warned in February, a statistic all the more troubling as the country is moving from its post-harvest season, when food is most available, into its “lean season” when food is harder to come by.
“The situation in South Sudan has deteriorated due to the ongoing conflicts,” said Guy Smagghe, executive director of Presbyterian World Service & Development. “Unfortunately, many farmers had to leave their lands behind, and the harvests that they were counting on for survival.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF and the World Food Programme have all called for the swift implementation of the peace agreement signed in August 2015, and access by aid agencies to areas of the country affected by conflict.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and 2 million people have fled their homes since war broke out in December 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those who back his former deputy, Riek Machar, now leader of the rebel group SPLM-IO (the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition).
Several Canadian church agencies have been providing aid through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank to people displaced by the violence. PWS&D has provided funding to a project in Central Equatoria State run by fellow CFGB member ADRA Canada, in close coordination with the UN locally. Together, they are providing about 14,000 people with emergency food supplies “to help them get through this difficult period, with the hope that things will stabilize in the meantime,” said Smagghe.
