South Sudan areas affected by famine

The United Nations has declared a famine in certain parts of the world's youngest
country, South Sudan.

The United Nations (UN) has declared a famine in South Sudan, the world's youngest
country.

The severe food shortage is the result of a civil war that has been going on since 2013.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, which has also
displaced millions.

According to the UN, the famine affects more than 100,000 people in two counties of
Unity state. There are fears it will spread as an additional one million South Sudanese
are on the brink of starvation.

Roughly 5.5 million people, or about half of South Sudan's population, are expected to
face severe food shortages and be at risk of death in the coming months, according to
the UN.

Officials have contested that hunger in South Sudan is even more shocking because of
the country's fertile land conditions.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN SOUTH SUDAN

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HUMANITARIAN
CRISIS IN
SOUTH SUDAN
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Crisis in South Sudan

Half the country’s population faces extreme
hunger
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A humanitarian
emergency
6 million people are in dire need of assistance
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ABOUT THE CRISIS IN SOUTH SUDAN

South Sudan has been a country in turmoil for a long time. In 1983, after a decade-long pause in
the country's long civil war between the north and south, conflict broke out again. It wasn't until
early 2005 - after more than 1.5 million people had died - that a peace agreement was signed
between the two sides. The agreement led to the historic vote that created the Republic of South
Sudan on July 9, 2011.

From the start, South Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world. Most of the fledgling
nation is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis fueled by years of chronic underdevelopment,
conflict and natural disasters.

Years of brutal civil war has contributed to an economic crisis and below average harvest that
continues to send food prices skyrocketing. The result has been a food crisis that continues to
spread throughout the country. According to an early warning report, there are new areas of
South Sudan reaching emergency levels of food crisis, which is just one level above famine.
These are areas where people have been recently displaced because of outbreaks of the conflict
that drove them off their land leaving them with no access to food and their agricultural
livelihoods. For example in Jonglei State, there have been 200,000 people displaced.

1.7 million people are on the brink of famine and 7.1 million face extreme hunger in South
Sudan. That is half population – the highest number ever recorded in the country. 1 million
children under the age of five are severely malnourished.

WHAT CARE IS DOING

CARE South Sudan is implementing emergency response programs in Unity, Eastern Equatoria,
Jonglei and Upper Nile Regions. The country office is planning to increase the funding target to
address the growing needs. CARE has reached 356,000 beneficiaries through food security,
livelihoods, nutrition, health and Gender/GBV interventions.
CARE Sudan has been responding to an influx of refugees for a couple years through a small-
scale response in South Kordofan in 2014 until the end of 2016, when the refugee influx
increased. CARE is currently providing critical, lifesaving support and building the resilience of
refugees and vulnerable host communities in East and South Darfur and South Kordofan
CARE has been working in the region since 1993, providing health services, improving access to
clean water and sanitation, mitigating the effects of droughts and helping with peace-building
efforts. CARE is providing assistance in health and nutrition for mothers and children under five
years old, food and livelihoods assistance, peace building and sexual and physical violence
prevention across four states including some of the worst affected by conflict. Since the conflict
began in December 2013, more than 4 million South Sudanese have fled their homes. Nearly 90
per cent of the forcibly displaced are women and children and nearly 65 per cent are under 18.
CARE has distributed more than $13 million worth of food assistance to more than half a million
people in Unity, Jonglei, Upper Nile and Eastern Equatorial states in the past 12 months.

CARE is providing critical, lifesaving support and building the resilience of IDPs, refugees and
vulnerable host communities. Priority sectors are WASH, Health, Nutrition and Food Security
and Livelihoods. The Country Office has now stepped up to meet the needs of the South
Sudanese Refugees influx that has occurred over the last six months through WASH as the main
priority sector. These activities currently reach over 443,092 IDPs, Refugees and Host
Communities.

88% of refugees and people on the run are women and children. They are at extreme risk and
CARE is working to bulk up its protection programming to help these extremely vulnerable
people.
More funds are needed to help host communities, as there assistance and protection of refugees
and displaced persons is critical to all basic services.

Acute malnutrition in children under the age of 5 is above emergency thresholds in different
areas across the country. According to the 2017 Humanitarian Needs Overview, 4.8 million
people are in need of humanitarian assistance including 3.6 million in need of food and
livelihood assistance, living at crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity.
The pressing humanitarian needs are exacerbated by the influx of South Sudanese Refugees
fleeing war and acute food insecurity in South Sudan. According to UNHCR, 410,354 South
Sudanese refugees have fled to Sudan during the period December 2013 – 15 July 2017, with
more than 160,000 South Sudanese arriving to various locations, including Darfur, South
Kordofan and White Nile states since January 2017.

GLOBAL HUNGER CRISIS

ABOUT THE GLOBAL HUNGER CRISIS

An unprecedented 81 million people are in need of emergency food assistance in 2017. The U.N.
has declared the global hunger emergency the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945. Across East
Africa, the Lake Chad Basin and Yemen, starvation threatens over 20 million people — more than the
populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia combined. Ethiopia,
Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, and South Sudan are already experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity
and face a credible risk of famine.

The crisis is the result of prolonged drought, violence and insecurity. Consecutive years of poor rains and
harvests have decimated crops across South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Families are dying not
only from starvation, but also from diseases such as cholera and measles because they lack clean water
and sanitation. Plus, ongoing fighting in countries such as Yemen prevents humanitarian workers from
reaching many of the children, women, and men who need lifesaving assistance. And as families are
forced to flee their homes to escape violence or find food, their needs begin to multiply.

This mass displacement compounds the crisis. East Africa is home to approximately 4 million refugees
and more than 11 million internally displaced people, who, though they have not crossed an
international border, still live in tent cities, dependent on food aid and other external
assistance. Women and girls bear the heaviest burden of these famine conditions, fetching water
from increasingly remote locations, and making compromises to access food for their families — putting
them at increased risk of sexual violence.

CARE’S RESPONSE

As 20 million people face the threat of famine, there is truly a sense of urgency to respond to the
alarming needs in these four countries. CARE is operational in all of these contexts and scaling up to
prevent growing food insecurity and severe malnutrition that has lasting effects on children’s growth
and development. We work closely with communities and local partners to do everything we can to
reach those in need.

CARE has reached over 350,000 people in South Sudan since the conflict began in 2013, providing food
and livelihood support to the displaced. CARE has ongoing responses in the affected areas of Niger, Chad
and Cameroon serving refugees impacted by the violence in northeast Nigeria. And CARE Somalia has
reached nearly 400,000 people in Somaliland, Puntland and south central Somalia with clean water,
cash, relief supplies, nutrition support and protection of women and girls. In Yemen, CARE has reached
1.6 million people with food distribution and cash assistance so families can purchase food that meet
their needs, and is also responding to the cholera outbreak with clean water and cholera prevention
kits.

The Worst Refugee

Crisis in History
Every minute, 24 people around the world are forced to flee their homes. That’s 34,000 people a
day who leave everything behind in the hope of finding safety and a better tomorrow.

THERE ARE 65 MILLION REFUGEES IN THE WORLD TODAY

Who is a refugee?
A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war,
or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot
return home or are afraid to do so. War and ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading
causes of refugees fleeing their countries.
Right now, nearly 5 million people have fled the conflict in Syria, and there is no end to
the crisis in sight.

Who is an internally displaced person?

An internally displaced person (IDP) is a person who has been forced to flee his or her home for
the same reason as a refugee, but remains in his or her own country and has not crossed an
international border. Unlike refugees, IDPs are not protected by international law or eligible to
receive many types of aid.
Examples include South Sudan, where a humanitarian crisis grips the world's newest country,
and Yemen, where more than 2.5 million people have been displaced by ongoing violence.

Who is an asylum seeker?

When people flee their own country and seek sanctuary in another country, they apply for
asylum - the right to be recognized as a refugee and receive legal protection and material
assistance. An asylum seeker must demonstrate that his or her fear of persecution in his or her
home country is well-founded.
Who is a stateless person?
A stateless person is someone who is not a citizen of any country. A person can become stateless
due to a variety of reasons, including sovereign, legal, technical or administrative decisions or
oversights.

Who is not legally recognized as a refugee?

People who leave their homes and cross international borders due to natural disasters, climate
change or environmental factors are not considered refugees. In addition, people who leave
their homes and cross international borders due to severe situations, such as a lack of food
(including famine), water, education, health care and a livelihood, are not legally-recognized
refugees. The United Nations states, "All of these emerging trends pose enormous challenges for
the international humanitarian community. The threat of continued massive displacement is real,
and the world must be prepared to deal with it. Recognizing this, the United Nations - and
UNHCR in particular - have already begun reviewing priorities, partners and methods of work in
dealing with the new dynamics of human displacement."
Example of this is the current El Nino food crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ABOUT THE CRISIS IN SOUTH SUDAN

South Sudan has been a country in turmoil for a long time. In 1983, after a decade-long
pause in the country's long civil war between the north and south, conflict broke out
again. It wasn't until early 2005 - after more than 1.5 million people had died - that a
peace agreement was signed between the two sides. The agreement led to the historic
vote that created the Republic of South Sudan on July 9, 2011.

From the start, South Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world. Most of the
fledgling nation is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis fueled by years of chronic
underdevelopment, conflict and natural disasters.

Years of brutal civil war has contributed to an economic crisis and below average
harvest that continues to send food prices skyrocketing. The result has been a food
crisis that continues to spread throughout the country. According to an early warning
report, there are new areas of South Sudan reaching emergency levels of food crisis,
which is just one level above famine. These are areas where people have been recently
displaced because of outbreaks of the conflict that drove them off their land leaving
them with no access to food and their agricultural livelihoods. For example in Jonglei
State, there have been 200,000 people displaced.

1.7 million people are on the brink of famine and 7.1 million face extreme hunger in
South Sudan. That is half population – the highest number ever recorded in the country.
1 million children under the age of five are severely malnourished.
WHAT CARE IS DOING
CARE South Sudan is implementing emergency response programs in Unity, Eastern Equatoria,
Jonglei and Upper Nile Regions. The country office is planning to increase the funding target to
address the growing needs. CARE has reached 356,000 beneficiaries through food security,
livelihoods, nutrition, health and Gender/GBV interventions.
CARE Sudan has been responding to an influx of refugees for a couple years through a small-
scale response in South Kordofan in 2014 until the end of 2016, when the refugee influx
increased. CARE is currently providing critical, lifesaving support and building the resilience of
refugees and vulnerable host communities in East and South Darfur and South Kordofan
CARE has been working in the region since 1993, providing health services, improving
access to clean water and sanitation, mitigating the effects of droughts and helping with
peace-building efforts. CARE is providing assistance in health and nutrition for mothers
and children under five years old, food and livelihoods assistance, peace building and
sexual and physical violence prevention across four states including some of the worst
affected by conflict. Since the conflict began in December 2013, more than 4 million
South Sudanese have fled their homes. Nearly 90 per cent of the forcibly displaced are
women and children and nearly 65 per cent are under 18. CARE has distributed more
than $13 million worth of food assistance to more than half a million people in Unity,
Jonglei, Upper Nile and Eastern Equatorial states in the past 12 months.

CARE is providing critical, lifesaving support and building the resilience of IDPs,
refugees and vulnerable host communities. Priority sectors are WASH, Health, Nutrition
and Food Security and Livelihoods. The Country Office has now stepped up to meet the
needs of the South Sudanese Refugees influx that has occurred over the last six
months through WASH as the main priority sector. These activities currently reach over
443,092 IDPs, Refugees and Host Communities.

88% of refugees and people on the run are women and children. They are at extreme
risk and CARE is working to bulk up its protection programming to help these extremely
vulnerable people.
More funds are needed to help host communities, as there assistance and protection of
refugees and displaced persons is critical to all basic services.

Acute malnutrition in children under the age of 5 is above emergency thresholds in

different areas across the country. According to the 2017 Humanitarian Needs
Overview, 4.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance including 3.6 million
in need of food and livelihood assistance, living at crisis or emergency levels of food
insecurity.

The pressing humanitarian needs are exacerbated by the influx of South Sudanese
Refugees fleeing war and acute food insecurity in South Sudan. According to UNHCR,
410,354 South Sudanese refugees have fled to Sudan during the period December
2013 – 15 July 2017, with more than 160,000 South Sudanese arriving to various
locations, including Darfur, South Kordofan and White Nile states since January 2017.
South Sudan: A brief history
South Sudan is Africa’s 54th country and the UN’s 193rd. It is the
youngest country in the world, having gained independence on 9
July 2011. Stretched over 640,000 sq km, South Sudan is larger
than France, but has a population of a little less than 12 million
people. Its capital is Juba.

The country is divided into 10 states. They are: Western Bahr el Ghazal,
Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap, Lakes, Unity, Upper Nile, Jonglei, Western
Equatoria, Central Equatoria, and Eastern Equatoria. The major towns are:
Juba, Wau and Malakal.

The history of South Sudan, which is intertwined with the history of the
Republic of Sudan (or North Sudan), goes back a long time, even before the
birth of Jesus Christ. The 25th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt was a Kush dynasty,
and these were Sudanese people who ruled over those territories.

In Biblical times, Sudan (North and South) was known as Kush, which had a
very old historical presence in the areas now occupied by the two Sudans and
beyond. There were powerful Christian kingdoms that grew along the Nile in
the northern parts of Sudan, such as the Kingdom of Nubia, the Kingdom of
Meroe, and the Kingdom of Alodia. The history of these kingdoms dates back
to 500 BC or even earlier.

One may ask, if Christ was not born, how could the kingdoms be Christian at
the time they existed? The answer is simple: The Kushite kingdoms knew God
and served the Almighty before Christ was born. The Biblical records show
Joseph, the son of Jacob, had been entrusted to rule Ancient Egypt by the
Pharoah, and following his great exploits in Egypt, Joseph’s whole family
traveled across the desert in Canaan. Including his father Jacob, 70 of the
family moved from Canaan to live in Egypt where Moses would later be born.

This was long before Christ was born, and the influence of the then-growing
Israelite community, whose members stayed in Egypt for 480 years, spread in
the neighbourhood, reaching the Kushite kingdoms as a result.
Therefore, the five kingdoms of Sudan, like the Ethiopians, knew God long
before Christ was born, and long before Europe even became Christian. In
fact, there are more pyramids in northern Sudan than there are in Egypt.

As South Sudan’s foreign minister, Dr Bernaba Marial Benjamin, a medical

doctor and noted historian, attests: “When the last Sudanese Christian
kingdom was defeated as a result of the Islamisation process that came
through Egypt to Sudan, they found staunch Christian kingdoms existing in
the north. These kingdoms tried to retain their identity like what happened in
Ethiopia.

“In the end, the last Christian kingdom there, the Kingdom of Alodia, was
defeated in 1505. So people who claim that it was European missionaries who
brought Christianity to South Sudan, do not know what they are talking about.
That is not true. Christian religion had been in Sudan even before Europe.”

Technically, no country, as the word is now understood, existed in the

territory now known as South Sudan before the European scramble for Africa.
The area only consisted of small, medium and large nationalities that
coexisted in relative harmony. The indigenous populations and their
territories remain largely the same to date.

This tranquil existence was interrupted by European invaders seeking trade.

South Sudan became the main source of slaves, gold, ivory and timber. Thus,
enormous human and other resources were plundered for generations.
Modern South Sudan emerged during the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium
(1898-1955), upon the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Britain and Egypt
colluded to occupy Sudan with separate administrative arrangements for the
North and South.

After the defeat of the Mahdist army in 1898, during the battle of Omdurman,
the people of North Sudan accepted the rule of the new Anglo-Egyptian
regime. However, the South rejected the regime and continued to fight for
their independence.

As Dr Benjamin says: “The Arab invasion and conquest only affected North
Sudan, and that’s why when the British came in 1898 and saw the dichotomy
between North and South Sudan – the northern part being Middle Eastern-
looking and inclined towards the Middle East, and the South still 100%
African where missionaries and Christian religion had taken root, looking
towards East Africa – they made South Sudan a “Closed District” to block the
Arab invasion that was coming from the north.
“People from the North needed a passbook to travel to the South and vice
versa. Britons like General Charles Gordon and Samuel Baker were in South
Sudan. At the time, the Kingdom of Darfur was an independent state until
1916 when it was annexed to Sudan.”

Before the British arrived, Egypt had invaded Sudan in 1821 and for 77 years
thereafter turned Sudan into a slave-hunting territory. Following on the heels
of the slave hunters came the Ottoman Empire during the era of the “Scramble
for Africa”, and it effectively became the first colonisers of Sudan, which it
ruled through Egypt.

After the British arrived in 1898, hiding behind their Egyptian proxies, they
saw South Sudan as part of Black Africa – in fact part of British East Africa,
while the North was left to its Arab orientation.

As the mayor of Juba, Chris S.W. Swaka, explains it: “The South was
predominantly African and the North predominantly ‘Afro Arabs’. Arabism in
Sudan is not traced to having Arab blood in you. It is the Islamic religion that
connects them to the Arab world. So it is more an ideological issue than a
racial one, although the current generation in the North is changing that
dynamic and more of them are calling themselves Africans now.”

Thus, there were clear-cut policies in the way North and South were
administered in the colonial era. “But by the 1930s and 40s, with the issue of
independence dominating the discourse,” says Foreign Minister Benjamin,
“the British started changing their mind towards the South and saying it
should become part of the North to form a united Sudan.

“This was to fulfill certain pledges they had made to the Egyptians who wanted
to control the whole 6,400km course of the Nile from Jinja in Uganda to
Alexandra on the Mediterranean coast.” This decision, however, greatly
displeased the people of the South who did not want to join the now Arab-
dominated North. But the British were adamant. Thus, in a historic
Roundtable Conference in Juba in 1947, the Southern chiefs told the British
that if the South were to become part of a united Sudan, there must be a
federal arrangement that would give the South autonomy over its affairs. But
this too was denied.

In fury, Southern troops in the national army rebelled in August 1955, four
months before Sudan’s independence in January 1956, and went into the bush
with fellow Southerners to fight for their rights and self-determination. Thus a
united Sudan became independent with the burden of war on its young
shoulders.

That war (called Anyanya I) continued till 1972 when a Peace Agreement was
signed in Addis Ababa by the North and South, which ushered in 11 years of an
uneasy truce and calm, the only period that peace reigned in South Sudan. The
war reignited in 1983 after President Gaffar Nimeiri unilaterally abrogated the
Addis Ababa Agreement.

For the South, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A),

then led by Dr John Garang, took over the execution of the war, which
continued until a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005.
Under the CPA, Dr Garang became the First Vice-President of Sudan (based in
Khartoum) and head of the Transitional Government in South Sudan. He
sadly died in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005, and was succeeded by
General Salva Kiir Mayardit.

The CPA led to a transitional period (2005-2011) and a referendum in January

2011 in which 98.85% of South Sudanese voted for separation and
independence, which finally came on 9 July 2011.

During the long years of war – from 1955 to 1972, and from 1983 to 2005 –
the various governments in Khartoum pursued a deliberate policy of
neglecting the South’s development, to the point where in 2005, at the signing
of the CPA, there was not one tarred road or street in the Southern capital of
Juba, or anywhere else in South Sudan.

To this day, there is only one tarred road in the whole of South Sudan, the
Juba-Nimule Road, 120 miles long, that cost $200m to tarmac in 2009, paid
for with a donation by the USA. Says Dr Benjamin: “They intentionally left the
South undeveloped and all the development projects were concentrated in the
North, for which some of the resources were taken from the South to run the
companies in the North. So the South was completely marginalised and that
made things worse as the South found that it was not getting what it
deserved.”

But today the South’s relations with the North, following a Cooperation
Agreement signed in September 2012, are now better. Dr Benjamin attests
that the two countries have agreed that they are neighbours not of their own
choosing, and therefore should remain good neighbours for their mutual
benefit.
“As such, our relations are now on a good platform of dialogue, on all issues,
we don’t have to fight over our differences,” says Dr Benjamin. “South Sudan
is the biggest market of the Republic of Sudan. Therefore, there is the need for
good relations between the two countries. And it is based on the
understanding that it is better we live as good neighbours. After all, our
common border is the longest we have, about 2,000 km long. So the only
solution is good neighbourliness.”

2018 South Sudan Humanitarian Needs

Overview