JUBA, South Sudan: In war-torn South Sudan, 1.25 million people are facing starvation, double the number from the same time last year, according to a report by the UN and the government released on Monday.
This country could once again plunge into famine in 2018, warn humanitarians and the government.
“The widespread and extreme food consumption gaps ... should make us all extremely concerned about the worst case scenario of famine in many locations across South Sudan in 2018,” said Katie Rickard, country coordinator for REACH, a humanitarian research initiative that provided data for the report.
Humanitarians blame the worsening situation on South Sudan’s continuing conflict, which is nearing its fifth year and has killed more than 50,000 people.
In February, the world’s youngest nation declared famine in two counties in Unity State, the world’s first formal famine declaration since Somalia in 2011.
In South Sudan’s two counties, 100,000 people were on the brink of starvation but thanks to early detection and a rapid response catastrophe was avoided, said the World Food Program.
However, the latest food and security analysis update by the UN and South Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics is grim.
As of September, 6 million people — 56 percent of the population — were experiencing severe hunger with 25,000 South Sudanese in humanitarian catastrophe in Ayod and Greater Baggari counties.
South Sudan’s widening war has made food production impossible and delivery of aid dangerous and difficult. Both Ayod and Baggari are rebel-held areas and locals say the situation in the two counties is dire.
“We ran out because of the hunger,” said a resident of Baggari who recently fled with his family to the nearby town of Wau because they didn’t have any food. He spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety.
The 52-year-old father of four told AP by phone that people are “dying of hunger” and in the last year and a half he only saw humanitarians enter Baggari town three times.
“If the government doesn’t approve of people coming in to help what can we do? We have nothing, we can just pray,” he said.
The government says there’s no policy of “discrimination” and it is committed to helping “all South Sudanese,” said Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of the National Bureau of Statistics.
Rights groups are calling on all parties of the conflict to provide immediate and unfettered access to humanitarian agencies.
“Both government and opposition forces have used food as a weapon of war, ranging from restrictions to civilian access to food, actively preventing food from reaching certain areas, systematically looting food and markets and homes and even targeting civilians carrying small amounts of food across front lines,” said Alicia Luedke, South Sudan researcher for Amnesty International.
On her first visit to the country in October, US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley raised concerns about humanitarian access during a meeting with South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, according to a statement by his office.
Kiir told her that together with the UN, they have been able to establish “mechanisms to improve access,” but acknowledged that more needs to be done.
As South Sudan enters the dry season, locals and aid workers are expecting the situation to get worse.
Communities are becoming more desperate to feed their families and people have started using “extreme coping strategies” says a report by REACH, including going into sparsely inhabited forests, swamps and grassland and finding “increasingly unhealthy wild plants” while they search for food.
“2018 will be critical,” said Serge Tissot from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization.
He said the only way to avoid further deterioration in the short term is “peace.”
The current food crisis is a result of the country’s “man-made conflict,” said UN representative in South Sudan, David Shearer.
“It’s about people who have fled their homes because of the conflict and therefore left their livelihoods behind,” said Shearer.
This is especially true in the Equatoria regions, once known as the breadbasket of South Sudan, yet today has the largest number of people who have fled their homes due to the conflict.
“South Sudan had ideal rainfall in most places this year,” said Shearer.
“It’s not about climate, it’s actually about war.”
1.25 million face starvation in war-torn South Sudan
1.25 million face starvation in war-torn South Sudan
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
