LEKUANGOLE, South Sudan (AP) – After nearly a week in hiding from conflict, Kallayn Keneng saw two of her young children die. “They cried and cried and said, ‘Mom, we need food,’ she said. But she had nothing to give. She was too weak to bury her 5-year-old and 7-year-old after days without food,” bodies with grass and left them in the woods.
Now the grieving 40-year-old is waiting for food aid, one of more than 30,000 people reportedly starving in South Sudan’s Pibor province. The new finding of international food security experts means that this could be the first part of the world with famine as one was proclaimed in 2017 in another part of the country that was then deeply in civil war.
South Sudan is one of four countries with areas that could go into famine, the United Nations warned, along with Yemen, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria.
Pibor province has faced deadly local violence and unprecedented flooding this year that has damaged relief efforts. On a visit to the city of Lekuangole this month, seven families told The Associated Press that 13 of their children were starving between February and November.
Lekuangole government head Peter Golu said he received unprecedented reports from community leaders that between September and December 17 children had died of starvation there and in surrounding villages.
The Famine Review Committee report, released this month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, makes no mention of famine due to insufficient data. But famine is thought to be happening, meaning at least 20% of households are facing extreme food shortages and at least 30% of children are acutely malnourished.
But the South Sudan government does not endorse the report’s findings. If a famine were to happen, it would be considered a failure, it says.
“They make assumptions. … We are dealing with facts here, they are not on the spot, ”said John Pangech, the chairman of the South Sudan Food Security Commission. The government says 11,000 people across the country are on the verge of starvation – far fewer than the 105,000 estimated by the new report from food security experts.
The government also expects 60% of the country’s population, or about 7 million people, to be in extreme hunger next year, with the worst affected areas in Warrap, Jonglei and North Bahr el Ghazal states.
South Sudan is struggling to recover from a five-year civil war. Food security experts say the scale of the hunger crisis was largely driven by the fighting. That includes attacks of violence this year between communities with alleged support from the government and the opposition.
The government “not only denies the seriousness of what is happening, but also denies the fundamental fact that its own policies and military tactics are responsible,” said Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” and executive. power. director of the World Peace Foundation.
This year, more than 2,000 people have been killed in local violence “armed” by people acting in their best interest, said the head of the UN mission in South Sudan, David Shearer. Violence has prevented people from cultivating, blocked supply routes, burned markets and killed aid workers.
Families in Lekuangole said their crops had been destroyed in the fighting. They now live on leaves and fruit.
During the violence in July, Martin, Kidrich Korok’s 9-year-old son, got separated from the family and spent more than a week in the woods. By the time he was found severely malnourished, it was too late.
“He always told me he would study hard and do something good for me when he grew up,” Korok said, crying. “Even when he was dying, he continued to reassure me that I shouldn’t have to worry.”
Health clinic staff in Lekuangole registered 20 severely malnourished children in the first week and a half of December, more than five times the number of cases in the same period last year, said a nurse named Gabriel Gogol.
Floods have cut off access to the town of Pibor for the most part and its better medical care, forcing some seriously ill children to travel along the river in thin plastic rafts for three days.
Officials in Pibor province say they do not understand why South Sudan’s government does not recognize the magnitude of the hunger.
“When people in (the capital) say there is no famine in Pibor, they are lying and want people to die,” said David Langole Varo, who works for the humanitarian arm of the government in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.
In the city of Pibor, malnourished mothers and children wait outside health clinics for hours, hoping for food.
In a joint statement last week, three UN agencies called for immediate access to parts of Pibor province where people faced catastrophic hunger.
The World Food Program faced challenges in delivering aid this year. About 635 tons of food was stolen from Pibor County and Jonglei State, enough to feed 72,000 people, and an air drop of food in Lekuangole killed an elderly woman in October.
The WFP said it will need more than $ 470 million over the next six months to address the hunger crisis.
Families are now worried about a resurgence in fighting as the dry season approaches.
While sitting at an MSF clinic in the city of Pibor, Elizabeth Girosdh watched her 8-month-old twins fight over her breast milk. The 45-year-old lost her crop in fighting in her village of Verteth in June. One of the twins is severely malnourished.
“Sometimes I try to breastfeed but I can’t and the kids cry and cry all night long,” she said. “If there isn’t enough food, I’m afraid I could lose it.”