JUBA: Almost 7.7 million people in South Sudan face crisis levels of hunger, the United Nations said Wednesday, many located in the country’s restive northeast rocked by recent clashes.
The deeply impoverished nation has battled instability and insecurity since independence in 2011, with violence between forces allied to the president and his deputy further threatening to destabilize the country.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement Wednesday that 7.7 million people face the third-highest category of need – defined as “crisis, emergency, or catastrophic.”
“This is close to record highs,” the statement said.
Around 63,000 people were defined as of the highest need and 2.53 million the category below, most located in the northeastern Upper Nile State region, a spokesperson said.
That part of the country is enduring an uptick in violence as forces allied to President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar clash.
Machar is currently under house arrest in capital Juba, leaving his party to appoint Stephen Par Kuol as interim leader.
The WFP said the Upper Nile region was the “most impacted by the escalation of conflict,” with one million people facing “high levels of hunger.”
“There is no shelter at all and there is scarcity of food,” Reath Yian Ulang, 32, said from Ulang county in Upper Nile State.
“We used to rely on food brought by traders from Ethiopia but because of the current crisis the traders have all fled back to Ethiopia in fear,” the father-of-four said by phone.
“People now drink water from the swamps.”
The agency also said efforts to get life-saving assistance to those in the direst need was being hampered by the violence.
“Insecurity has forced WFP to pause distributions in six counties in the region for the safety of our staff, partners and the people we serve,” it said.
Additionally, more than 1.1 million people have fled to South Sudan since the start of the two-year civil war in Sudan – most arriving in the Upper Nile region – and almost half are facing “catastrophic” levels of hunger, WFP added in the statement.
South Sudan is also grappling with a cholera outbreak, with UNICEF saying roughly 40,000 cases have been reported since September including almost 700 deaths – with children disproportionately affected.
The United States’ decision to slash international aid has also impacted the country, with humanitarian workers warning children were dying as a result of remote facilities being closed.

LONDON: A group of MPs in the UK have called on the government to launch an Iraq war-style inquiry into Britain’s role in the Gaza conflict, Sky News reported on Wednesday.

The 37 MPs include 10 from the governing Labour Party, who have signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer written by Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s former leader.

Corbyn demanded a “comprehensive inquiry with legal power to establish the truth” about the war, which has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

It follows Israel denying entry to, and deporting, two Labour MPs who had traveled there as part of a parliamentary delegation.

Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang intended to visit humanitarian aid projects in the West Bank.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy described Israel’s decision as “unacceptable” and “no way to treat British parliamentarians.”

MPs from the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein also signed Corbyn’s letter, as did members of the House of Lords.

He said he has consistently pursued answers over Britain’s continued sale of F-35 jet components to Israel, the use of British military bases in the war, and the legal definition of genocide, yet he has been met with “evasion, obstruction and silence.”

The government is “leaving the public in the dark over the ways in which the responsibilities of government have been discharged,” Corbyn added.

He warned that history is at risk of “repeating itself,” drawing parallels to the UK’s decision to invade Iraq based on “flawed intelligence and assessments.”

That assessment was found by the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, published in 2016 following numerous delays.

An inquiry into the UK’s ties to the Gaza war “should establish exactly what decisions have been taken, how these decisions have been made and what consequences they have had,” Corbyn said.

“Any meaningful inquiry would require the full cooperation from government ministers involved in decision-making processes since October 2023,” he added.

“Many people believe the government has taken decisions that have implicated officials in the gravest breaches of international law.

“These charges will not go away until there is a comprehensive, public, independent inquiry with the legal power to establish the truth.”