The World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up food distribution to more than one million people in the Central African Republic.

The UN agency says it urgently needs $107 million to support its work through August 2014.

The international community is being asked to disburse $166 million to provide life-saving aid to people displaced from the fighting in South Sudan, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

South Sudan’s capital city Juba is increasingly becoming deserted as tensions escalate between rival factions in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

An estimated 40,000 civilians are being sheltered at UN bases across the country as fighting spreads.

The United Nations on Monday appealed for close to $13 billion to provide humanitarian assistance to people in crisis situations around the world next year.