11 April 2014 - South Sudan’s children are nearing a nutrition crisis and almost a quarter of a million young people could suffer severe acute malnutrition by the end of the year, according to UNICEF.

“Many children in South Sudan already faced emergency levels of under-nutrition in the two and a half years since independence in 2011,” the agency said in a statement. “Now the ongoing conflict has pushed them to the edge - unless treatment is scaled up immediately, up to 50,000 children under the age of five are likely to die.”

Currently, over 3.7 million people, including almost 740,000 children under the age five, in the country were at high risk of food insecurity, the statement said. Many were already eating so-called “famine foods” -- wild foods like bulbs and grasses.

“Sadly, worse is yet to come,” said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF representative in South Sudan. “If conflict continues, and farmers miss the planting season, we will see child malnutrition on a scale never before experienced here, If we cannot get more funds and better access to reach malnourished children in South Sudan, tens of thousands of under-fives will die.”

UNICEF’s immediate goal is to treat more than 150,000 severely malnourished children under five. In part, this will occur through rapid response teams delivering ready-to-use therapeutic foods, micronutrient supplements, medicines, water purification sachets, Vitamin A and deworming tablets, and support breastfeeding mothers as well as pregnant women.

This fast and flexible approach was currently being deployed in remote, previously unreachable areas, the statement said. But to fully meet nutrition needs in South Sudan, UNICEF currently needs $38 million, of which only $4.6 million has been received.