Adyinka Badejo, Acting Country Director of the World Food Program in South Sudan, said that “this year the World Food Program intended to provide food assistance to 6.2 million people, but we are faced with growing humanitarian needs and lack of funding, and we have taken the step of disease conditions require suspension of food aid for 1.7 million people.

Speaking to reporters from Geneva, she noted that “more than two-thirds of the population of South Sudan is suffering from a humanitarian crisis and they need humanitarian assistance to survive,” noting that “according to the World Food Program, 8.3 million people including internally displaced persons and refugees. They will suffer severe famine during the dry season, adding to this the ongoing conflict, severe flooding and high food prices exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine.

The UN spokesman expressed “grave concern about the impact of funding cuts on children, women and men who will be short of food as these families have completely exhausted their coping strategies.”

UN reports warn that 7.7 million people will face “severe hunger” in South Sudan during the peak of the lean season (June to August), and 1.4 million children will suffer from acute malnutrition. WFP prioritizes its limited food assistance to reach 4.5 million people suffering from extreme hunger in 52 districts of South Sudan, including 87,000 people in eight districts who are already suffering from “catastrophic hunger” and living in starvation conditions .