Famine declared in South Sudan

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/africa/south-sudan-famine/index.html

By Farai Sevenzo and Bryony Jones, CNN
Updated 6:13 PM ET, Mon February 20, 2017

Years of civil war, a refugee crisis and a collapsing economy have taken their toll on South Sudan since it gained its independence in 2011.

Now the UN World Food Programme and nongovernmental organizations are sounding the alarm, warning that more than a million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive."

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Drew said the famine was "a man-made tragedy" and called for an end to the fighting so aid could get through to those most in need.

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Fomiyen said humanitarian groups had found it extremely difficult to reach the hardest-hit areas.
"We have to talk to 10 to 15 people and ask if it's possible to send a team there," he said. "You cannot just access these places without prior agreement."
Fomiyen said the program's food supplies will run out unless it can secure "a substantial injection of funds" -- $205 million -- within the next six months.
"We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources," he said. "We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle."

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Fomiyen said humanitarian groups had found it extremely difficult to reach the hardest-hit areas.
"We have to talk to 10 to 15 people and ask if it's possible to send a team there," he said. "You cannot just access these places without prior agreement."
Fomiyen said the program's food supplies will run out unless it can secure "a substantial injection of funds" -- $205 million -- within the next six months.
"We are quite concerned that we do not have the resources," he said. "We could run out of food by the end of June. The needs are so huge; every time you are entering a new front, a new battle."

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South Sudan is the world's newest country. It gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, after years of civil war.
But after two years of relative peace, trouble broke out between President Salva Kiir's mainly Dinka army and the Nuer people of his former deputy Riek Machar.
Since July 2016 that fighting has intensified to draw in other ethnic groups and render the countryside, including the formerly agriculturally rich Equatoria region, a permanent war zone that has been producing refugees instead of food.