South Sudan: UN humanitarians forced to cut aid to 1.7 million people 

Food assistance to 1.7 million people in South Sudan has been suspended, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday, citing a funding crunch and rising needs.  

Here’s Adeyinka Badejo-Sanogo, WFP Acting Country Director in South Sudan: 

“We are particularly concerned with these cuts, especially because these cuts are happening at the start of the lean season, when families have completely exhausted any food reserves and are likely to continue to suffer acute levels of hunger as the lean season deepens. Essentially, WFP in South Sudan - we are in ‘famine-prevention’ mode.” 

The WFP official explained that more than two in three people are experiencing a serious humanitarian and protection crisis and need help to survive. 

Of these, an estimated 8.3 million people, including internally displaced persons and refugees, will endure acute severe hunger during the lean season. 

The development comes as communities prepare for a fourth consecutive year of flash-flooding, which has left vast stretches of ground sodden and fields unusable, particularly in Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity states. 

In 2021, one million people fled their homes because of the flooding in South Sudan. This year, it’s estimated that approximately 600,000 are at risk. 

Hunger in Latin America, Caribbean: whole continent is on the move, warns WFP 

Ever greater numbers of vulnerable people are risking their lives on dangerous migration routes in Latin America, forced to move by the global food security crisis that’s been made worse by spiralling inflation linked to the war in Ukraine, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. 

Countries including Haiti now face food price inflation of 26 per cent and other countries are worse still, said Lola Castro, WFP Regional Director in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Latest data indicates that 9.7 million people in the 13 countries where WFP works across the region are already extremely food insecure; that’s up from 8.3 million in late 2021. 

It’s forecast that could rise to around 14 million, if the crisis continues. 

Already, more people are deciding to leave their homes and migrate north, said Ms. Castro: 

“All of you are watching caravans, caravans of migrants moving, and before we used to talk about migration happening from the north of Central America, but now, unfortunately, we talk about migration being hemispheric. We have the whole continent on the move.” 

One of the clearest signs of people’s desperation is the fact that they are willing to risk their lives crossing the Darien Gap, a particularly arduous and dangerous forest route in Central America that allows access from the south of the continent to the north. 

UN crowdfunding campaign aims to avert Yemen oil tanker threat 

The United Nations has launched a social media campaign to urgently raise additional funds to start an emergency operation to transfer more than a million barrels of oil from a decaying supertanker moored off the coast of Yemen. 

The FSO Safer is holding four times the amount of crude oil spilled in the notorious 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster and is in danger of breaking apart or exploding. 

The vessel has been anchored a few miles off Yemen’s western coast for more than 30 years but offloading and maintenance stopped in 2015 due to the conflict between pro-Government coalition forces and Houthi rebels. 

The UN has so far raised three-quarters of the $80 million required to start the emergency operation to offload oil to a temporary vessel, and the crowdfunding campaign aims to raise $5 million from the global public.  

The transfer operation is part of a $144 million plan that also involves installing a replacement vessel for the FSO Safer.   

Dianne Penn, UN News.