JUBA: Nearly half of the population in war-torn South Sudan is experiencing extreme hunger, with many more set to run out of food as famine looms, government and UN agencies said Monday.
A year after South Sudan became the first country in six years to experience famine, due to a drawn out civil war, its National Bureau of Statistics warned that 40 percent more people were going hungry this year, even before the lean season sets in.
The state bureau said in a statement that in January 5.3 million people, representing 48 percent of the population, were facing acute food insecurity.
In 2017 some 100,000 people were affected by a famine — meaning people started dying due to lack of food. It was declared over in June.
“Improved access and a massive humanitarian response succeeded in containing and averting famine later last year. Despite this, the food insecurity outlook has never been so dire as it is now,” said a joint statement from three United Nations aid agencies.
Four years of civil war have devastated agriculture, while prices have soared and rains have also been unreliable. The country has also been hit by crop-destroying armyworm caterpillars.
“The situation is deteriorating with each year of conflict as more people lose the little they had. We are alarmed as the lean season when the harvest runs out is expected to start this year much earlier than usual,” said Adnan Khan, World Food Programme (WFP) country director.
The statistics bureau and aid agencies warned that if humanitarian assistance was not stepped up, more than seven million people could become food insecure — two thirds of the population.
Eleven counties are at risk of famine.
Without assistance, as of May, more than 1.3 million children under five will be at risk of acute malnutrition.
Allain Noudehou, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, told a press conference that only 5.5 percent of $1.7 billion (1.3 billion euros) in aid needed in 2018 had been received.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, was engulfed by civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his rival and former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him.
Violence — initially between ethnic Dinka supporters of Kiir and ethnic Nuer supporters of Machar — has since spread to other parts of the country, engulfing other ethnic groups.
The last cease-fire, signed in December, was broken within hours while the latest round of peace talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have stalled.
Half of South Sudanese hungry, as famine looms
Half of South Sudanese hungry, as famine looms
UK pays Guantanamo detainee ‘substantial’ compensation over US torture questions
- Abu Zubaydah has been held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for 20 years
- British security services knew he was subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation’ but failed to raise concerns for 4 years
LONDON: A Saudi-born Palestinian being held without trial by the US has received a “substantial” compensation payment from the UK government, the BBC reported.
Abu Zubaydah has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for almost 20 years following his capture in Pakistan in 2002, and was subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques by the CIA.
He was accused of being a senior member of Al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the US. The allegations were later dropped but he remains in detention.
The compensation follows revelations that UK security services submitted questions to the US to be put to Abu Zubaydah by their US counterparts despite knowledge of his mistreatment.
He alleged that MI5 and MI6 had been “complicit” in torture, leading to a legal case and the subsequent compensation.
Dominic Grieve, the UK’s former attorney general, chaired a panel reviewing Abu Zubaydah’s case.
He described the compensation as “very unusual” but said the treatment of Abu Zubaydah had been “plainly” wrong, the BBC reported.
Grieve added that the security services had evidence that the “Americans were behaving in a way that should have given us cause for real concern,” and that “we (UK authorities) should have raised it with the US and, if necessary, closed down co-operation, but we failed to do that for a considerable period of time.”
Abu Zubaydah’s international legal counsel, Prof. Helen Duffy, said: “The compensation is important, it’s significant, but it’s insufficient.”
She added that more needs to be done to secure his release, stating: “These violations of his rights are not historic, they are ongoing.”
Duffy said Abu Zubaydah would continue to fight for his freedom, adding: “I am hopeful that the payment of the substantial sums will enable him to do that and to support himself when he’s in the outside world.”
He is one of 15 people still being held at Guantanamo, many without charge. Following his initial detention, he arrived at the prison camp having been the first person to be taken to a so-called CIA “black site.”
He spent time at six such locations, including in Lithuania and Poland, outside of US legal jurisdiction.
Internal MI6 messages revealed that the “enhanced interrogation” techniques he was subjected to would have “broken” the resolve of an estimated 98 percent of US special forces members had they been subjected to them.
CIA officers later decided he would be permanently cut off from the outside world, with then-President George W. Bush publicly saying Abu Zubaydah had been “plotting and planning murder.”
However, the US has since withdrawn the allegations and no longer says he was a member of Al-Qaeda.
A report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times, was locked in a coffin-like box for extended periods, and had been regularly assaulted. Much of his treatment would be considered torture under UK law.
Despite knowledge of his treatment, it was four years before British security services raised concerns with their American counterparts, and their submission of questions within that period had “created a market” for the torture of detainees, Duffy said.
A 2018 report by the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was deeply critical of the behavior of MI5 and MI6 in relation to Abu Zubaydah.
It also criticized conduct relating to Guantanamo detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely regarded as a key architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, warning that the precedent set by Abu Zubaydah’s legal action could be used by Mohammed to bring a separate case against the UK.
MI5 and MI6 failed to comment on Abu Zubaydah’s case. Neither the UK government nor Mohammed’s legal team would comment on a possible case over his treatment.
