UN humanitarian agencies reach thousands of cut-off South Sudanese

28 Aug 2015

UN humanitarian agencies reach thousands of cut-off South Sudanese

27 August 2015 - UN emergency relief teams have reached more than 27,000 people in a town in South Sudan cut off by insecurity since March, according to a joint statement issued by UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP).

“With little or no services available, children are going without nourishing food and healthcare in these villages,” said Jonathan Veitch, Representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in South Sudan.

“It is a desperate situation,” said Mr. Veitch, who was visiting the town of Wau Shilluk on the west bank of the Nile River across from the Upper Nile State capital Malakal.

UNICEF noted that access problems and concerns for staff safety had prevented humanitarian agencies from reaching people living in Wau Shilluk and other Upper Nile areas for the past several months.

Since fighting broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, more than two million people have been uprooted from their homes, and 4.6 million people face severe food insecurity.

WFP and UNICEF, together with their partners, have reached more than 1.3 million people, including 220,000 children under the age of 5, in the most hard-to-reach areas of the country since they began deploying the joint teams known as Rapid Response Missions more than a year ago.

And this week, after being denied access due to insecurity since March, WFP and UNICEF deployed a mobile emergency relief team to assist more than 27,000 people in Wau Shilluk.

“We could see that people are struggling,” said Valerie Guarnieri, WFP Regional Director for East and Central Africa. “There were only some fish and a few tomatoes for sale in the market, and almost nobody had the means to buy them.”

While in Wau Shilluk, WFP provided food assistance to more than 20,000 people. UNICEF screened more than 3,000 children under the age of 5 for malnutrition, vaccinated more than 8,000 children under the age of 15 against measles, and vaccinated more than 7,800 against polio. More than 400 pregnant women were vaccinated against tetanus.

“We need a stronger presence by humanitarian organizations in places like Wau Shilluk to provide immediate food and nutrition support and to reopen schools, ensure health services and support agricultural production,” WFP’s Ms. Guarnieri said.