Almost half the population of south Sudan is facing food shortage due to conflict and drought, a fourfold rise in the people needing aid since last year, the UN said yesterday.
A total of 4.3 million southern Sudanese need food aid, up from around 1 million last year, the UN World Food Programme said.Goss Minister for Agriculture and Forestry, Samson Kwaje, said in a statement that internal conflict and incursions from the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army together with drought have left almost half the population of the south short of food.
Aid groups said a surge in tribal fighting has killed more than 2,500 people during 2009, and seasonal rains were short across much of the region.