Thousands of people in Koch County of Unity state are facing hunger after food prices skyrocketed in the wake of humanitarian organizations suspending food distribution.
Ruot Riak Teny, Koch County Coordinator of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) said on Thursday that Koch County has been facing food shortages due to climatic shocks such as flooding and drought.
“Many children and elderly people are malnourished because there is no food, as I am talking to you now it’s very rare to get a bag of 50 kg of sorghum, so people depend on gallon at the price of 9500 South Sudanese Pounds,” Teny told Juba Echo in an interview.
He added that the population is experiencing severe acute food insecurity following the arrival of thousands of returnees escaping conflict in neighboring Sudan.
“To make the matters worse, returnees depend on the host community because they came without food, sleeping materials and share food with their relatives,” Teny said.
He urged humanitarian agencies to scale up assistance for returnees and host community.
Teny said that impassable roads have made it difficult for humanitarian agencies to access those in dire need of assistance.
At least 7.1 million people, about 56.3 percent of South Sudan’s population are projected to face acute food insecurity in 2024, according to a joint report released by the government and UN agencies.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) report released in Juba, an estimated 5.78 million people will likely face worse acute food shortages (IPC3) in the next four months.
It said most of food insecure states between Decembers to March 2024, where more than 50 percent of their populations are likely to face crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse acute food insecurity are found in Unity state, Jonglei, Upper Nile and Northern Bahr El Ghazal.
