JUBA: At 14 months, Adut Duor should be walking. Instead, his spine juts through his skin and his legs dangle like sticks from his mother’s lap in a South Sudan hospital. At half the size of a healthy baby his age, he is unable to walk.
Adut’s mother, Ayan, couldn’t breastfeed her fifth child, a struggle shared by the 1.1 million pregnant and lactating women who are malnourished in the east African country.
“If I had a blessed life and money to feed him, he would get better,” Ayan said at a state hospital in Bor, 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the capital, Juba.
A recent UN-backed report projects that about 2.3 million children under 5 in South Sudan now require treatment for acute malnutrition, with over 700,000 of those in severe condition. The report attributes the rising numbers to renewed conflict in the northern counties and reduced humanitarian assistance.
Independent since 2011, South Sudan has been crippled by violence and poor governance. United Nations investigators recently accused authorities of looting billions of dollars in public funds, as 9 million of South Sudan’s almost 12 million people rely on humanitarian assistance. Now, funding cuts, renewed violence, climate change and entrenched corruption are converging to deepen the unfolding hunger crisis.
Funding cuts
In the basic ward at the hospital in Bor, dozens of mothers cradle frail children. Malnutrition cases have more than doubled this year, a crisis worsened by recent staff cuts. Funding cuts this spring forced Save the Children to lay off 180 aid staff, including 15 nutrition workers who were withdrawn from Bor in May.
Funding cuts have also hit supplies of ready-to-use therapeutic food, RUTF, the peanut paste that has been a lifeline for millions of children around the world. USAID once covered half global production, but Action Against Hunger’s Country Director Clement Papy Nkubizi warns stocks are now running dangerously low.
“Twenty-two percent of children admitted for malnutrition at Juba’s largest children’s hospital have died of hunger,” Nkubizi said. “Triangulating this to the field… there are many children who are bound to die.”
He explains that families now walk for hours to reach support after the organization closed 28 malnutrition centers. UNICEF says more than 800 (66 percent) of malnutrition sites nationwide report reduced staffing.
Violence hampering aid delivery
Violence in South Sudan’s northern states has compounded the crisis, blocking humanitarian access and driving hundreds of thousands from their farmland.
Although a 2018 peace deal ended the country’s five-year civil war, renewed clashes between the national army and militia groups raise fears of a return to large-scale conflict. In Upper Nile State, where the violence has resurged, malnutrition levels are the highest.
The UN said intensified fighting along the white Nile River meant no supplies reached the area for over a month in May, plunging more than 60,000 already malnourished children into deeper hunger.
In June, the South Sudanese government told The Associated Press it turned to US company Fogbow for airdrops to respond to needs in areas hit by violence. Although the company claims to be a humanitarian force, UN workers question the departure from the established system.
Global humanitarian group Action Against Hunger had to abandon warehouses and operations in Fangak, Jonglei State, after an aerial bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital left seven dead in May.
“Our sites in these locations are now also flooded, submerged as we speak,” said Nkubizi.
Around 1.6 million people are at risk of displacement from flooding, as submerged farmland and failed harvests compound hunger in the climate-vulnerable country.
“Malnutrition is not just about food insecurity — cholera outbreaks, malaria and poor sanitation compound the problem,” says Shaun Hughes, the World Food Program’s regional emergency coordinator.
With more than 60 percent of the population defecating in the open, flooding turns contaminated water into a major health threat.
No nutritional support
At Maban County Hospital near the northern border with Sudan, 8-month-old Moussa Adil cries with hunger in his mother’s arms.
Moussa’s nutritionist, Butros Khalil, says there’s no supplementary milk for the frail child that evening. The hospital received its last major consignment in March.
US funding cuts forced international aid groups to reduce support to this hospital. Khalil and dozens of colleagues have not been paid for six months. “Now we are just eating leaves from the bush,” he says, describing how the exorbitant cost of living makes it impossible to feed his 20-person family.
The neighboring war in Sudan has disrupted trade and driven up the cost of basic goods. Combined with soaring inflation, the economic pressure means 92 percent of South Sudanese live below the poverty line — a 12 percent increase from last year, according to the African Development Bank.
“People pull their kids out of school, they sell their cattle just to make ends meet, then they become the hungry people,” says Hughes.
Action Against Hunger says it had to halt school feeding after US funding was withdrawn, raising fears of children slipping from moderate to dangerous hunger levels.
In Maban’s camps near the Sudan border, refugees say WFP cash and dry food handouts no longer cover basic needs. With rations halved and over half the area’s population removed from the eligibility list, many face hunger — some even consider returning to war-torn Sudan.
Critics say years of aid dependence have exposed South Sudan. The government allocates just 1.3 percent of its budget to health — far below the 15 percent target set by the World Health Organization, according to a recent UNICEF report. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the health care system is funded by foreign donors.
Corruption
The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan recently said billions of dollars had been lost to corruption, as public officials diverted revenue. The government called the allegations “absurd.”
Committee member Barney Afako said leaders were “breaching international laws which oblige governments to apply maximum available resources to realize the rights to food, health and education.”
The Commission Chairperson, Yasmin Sooka, said the funds siphoned off by elites could have built schools, staffed hospitals and secured food for the South Sudanese people.
“Corruption is killing South Sudanese. It’s not incidental — it’s the engine of South Sudan’s collapse, hollowing out its economy, gutting institutions, fueling conflict, and condemning its people to hunger and preventable death,” she said.
As the international community warns of a worsening crisis, it has already reached the hospital floors of South Sudan and the frail frames of children like Moussa and Adut.
‘Children are bound to die’: Corruption, aid cuts and violence fuel a hunger crisis in South Sudan
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‘Children are bound to die’: Corruption, aid cuts and violence fuel a hunger crisis in South Sudan
- The report attributes the rising numbers to renewed conflict in the northern counties and reduced humanitarian assistance
- Now, funding cuts, renewed violence, climate change, and entrenched corruption are converging to deepen the unfolding hunger crisis
As tensions flare on Israel-Lebanon border, war-torn communities struggle to rebuild
- One year into a shaky ceasefire on this heavily fortified border, Israel’s government says most of those displaced have returned to their homes in the north
- Israel’s government says it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in border recovery efforts, that it plans to invest more in economic revival
METULA, Israel: Ilan Rosenfeld walks through the burnt-out shell of his former business, stepping over crackling pieces of clay plates that used to line his cafe and past metal scraps of Hezbollah rockets littering the rubble.
It’s all that’s left for him in this small, war-ravaged town — the northernmost in Israel, surrounded on three sides by Lebanon.
“Everything I had, everything I saved, everything I built – it’s all burned,” he said as he scanned the damage of the business he’d run for 40 years in Metula, which has long been at the crosshairs of flare-ups along the volatile border. “Every day I wake up, and all I have left are tears.”
Rosenfeld was among tens of thousands of people forced from their homes when war broke out between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah in October 2023, following Hamas’ attack in southern Israel.
One year into a shaky ceasefire on this heavily fortified border, Israel’s government says most of those displaced have returned to their homes in the north, where they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives. Others are reluctant to come back, as Israel has stepped up attacks in Lebanon. Communities like Metula that were in the center of the conflict remain little more than ghost towns, most still half empty, with many people skeptical of their government’s promise to keep them safe.
The Israeli strikes into southern Lebanon continue, with several a week. Hezbollah has refused to completely disarm until Israel fully withdraws.
“The security situation is starting to deteriorate again,” Rosenfeld said, looking at the bomb shelters on a list recently distributed by the local government. “And where am I in all this? I can barely survive the day-to-day.”
In some towns on the Israel-Lebanon border, the return has been a trickle
Metula residents were among the 64,000 forced to evacuate and relocate to hotels and temporary homes farther south when Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel in fall 2023. Months of fighting escalated into a full-fledged war. In September 2024, Israel killed 12 and wounded over 3,000 in a coordinated pager attack and killed Hezbollah’s leader in a strike. A month later, the ceasefire deal was reached.
Today, residents have trickled back to the sprawling apple orchards and mountains as Israel’s government encourages them to go home. Officials say about 55,000 people have returned.
In Metula, just over half of the 1,700 residents are back. Yet the streets remain largely empty.
Many hoped to rebuild their lives, but they returned to find 60 percent of the town’s homes damaged from rocket fire, according to the local government. Others were infested and destroyed by rats. The economy — largely based on tourism and agriculture — has been devastated.
With many people, especially young families, reluctant to return, some business owners have turned to workers from Thailand to fill labor shortages.
“Most of the people who worked with us before the war didn’t come back,” said Jacob Katz, who runs a produce business. “We’ve lost a lot … and we can’t read the future.”
Rosenfeld’s modest cafe and farm were perched on a hill overlooking the border fence. Tourists would come to eat, camp in buses converted to rooms and enjoy the view. But now, the towns on the Lebanese side of the border have been reduced to rubble by Israel’s attacks.
Without a home, Rosenfeld sleeps in a small shelter next to the scraps that remain of his business. He has little more than a tent, a refrigerator and a few chairs. Just a stone’s throw away sit a military watch tower and two armored vehicles.
Israel’s government says it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in border recovery efforts, that it plans to invest more in economic revival, and that residents can apply for support funds.
But Rosenfeld said that despite his requests for government assistance, he hasn’t received any aid.
He’s among residents and business leaders who say they feel forgotten. Most say they need more resources to rebuild.
“The Israeli government needs to do much more for us,” Metula deputy mayor Avi Nadiv said. “The residents who live on Israel’s northern border, we are Israel’s human shield.”
A spokesman for Zeev Elkin, a Cabinet minister overseeing reconstruction in the north, said the local government has not used funds allocated to reconstruction “due to narrow political and oppositional considerations.”
Hezbollah-Israel tensions are flaring
As Hezbollah refuses to disarm, Israel has accused Lebanon’s government of not doing enough to neutralize the militant group. The Lebanese army says it has boosted its presence over the border area to strengthen the ceasefire.
Israel continues to bombard what it says are Hezbollah sites. Much of southern Lebanon has been left in ruins.
The strikes are among a number of offensives Israel has launched – including those in Gaza, the West Bank and Syria – in what it calls an effort to crack down on militant groups.
The Lebanon strikes have killed at least 127 civilians, including children, since the ceasefire took hold, according to a November UN report. UN special rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz said the strikes amount to “war crimes.” Israel has maintained that it has the right to continue strikes to protect itself from Hezbollah rearming and accuses the group of using civilians as human shields.
Last week, Israel struck the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing Hezbollah’s top military commander. The group, still weakened by last year’s fighting, has not responded.
‘The army cannot protect me’
In Metula, signs of the tensions are everywhere. The local government’s list of public shelters reads: “Metula is prepared for an emergency.”
Explosions and gunfire periodically echo from military drills while farmer Levav Weinberg plays with his 10-, 8- and 6-year-old children. Weinberg, a military reservist, said his kids are too scared to ride their bikes on the street.
Weinberg, 44, and his family returned in July, skeptical of the government’s promise that everything was returning to normal but eager to keep their business alive.
Metula’s government continues to encourage people to come back, telling residents the region is safe and the economy will bounce back.
“Today we feel the winds of, let’s call it, the winds of war – but it doesn’t deter us,” Nadiv said. “Coming back to Metula – there’s nothing to be afraid of. ... The army is here. The houses are fortified. Metula is prepared for anything.”
Weinberg isn’t so sure. In recent weeks, he and his wife have considered leaving once again.
“The army cannot protect me and my family,” Weinberg said. “You sacrifice your family to live in Metula these days. It’s not a perfect life, it’s not that easy, and at some point your kids pay the price.”
