South Sudan
HIGHLIGHTS
• About 7.7 million people face severe acute food insecurity – at the Crisis level (IPC Phase 3) or higher during the April – July 2023 lean season according to the October-November 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projection.
• In February, WFP distributed 13,880 mt of food and USD 3.6 million as cash-based transfers to 1.6 million people, representing 67 percent of the people targeted in February.
• In February, WFP had 92,084 mt of food in South Sudan, and dispatched 46,281 mt to various locations throughout the country.
• WFP faces a funding gap of USD 567 million between March and August 2023 and had to reduce the total number of people targeted from 7.7 million to 5.4 million.
SITUATION UPDATE
• South Sudan is experiencing a multidimensional crisis combining social, economic, security, political and public health challenges. Climatic shocks, insecurity, inflation, and loss of livelihoods remained the main drivers of food insecurity.
• Communal violence escalated in several states, including Jonglei, Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria, Central Equatoria State, and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA), among others. Violent clashes between armed cattle keepers and host community members in Kajo-keji County of Central Equatoria State, displaced 20,000 people and left 27 others dead.
The violence in Jonglei State increased insecurity incidents characterized by increased armed attacks on humanitarian workers, assets and operations, including looting of humanitarian food and other supplies from convoys.
• On 22 February, a measles outbreak hit Malakal County of Upper Nile State, infecting 179 people and causing one death in ten days. This latest outbreak brought the total number of people infected in the country between January 2022 and February 2023 to 4,635 people and 47 deaths.
In coordination with the Government, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other humanitarian partners continued to offer frontline health services, conduct water quality testing, and distribute emergency health supplies to the affected people, including cholera investigation and treatment kits.
• About 9.4 million people require humanitarian assistance in 2023, representing 76 percent of South Sudan’s population, and an increase of 500,000 people from 2022. The October-November 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projects that 7.7 million will face severe acute food insecurity – at the Crisis level (IPC 3) or higher during the April-July 2023 lean season. Of the 7.7 million, 2.9 million people will face Emergency (IPC 4) acute food insecurity, and 43,000 will be in Catastrophe (IPC 5) acute food insecurity in Jonglei and Unity States. The rest, 4.8 million people, will face Crisis (IPC 3) conditions. Further, 1.4 million children will be moderately or severely malnourished in 2023, surpassing the levels seen during the conflict in 2013 and 2016. See the IPC projection for April– July 2023 here.
• The South Sudanese Pound (SSP) continued to depreciate, hitting a new low and falling to its lowest level in history against the US dollar. The average reference and parallel rates stood at SSP 753 and SSP 775 per US dollar, respectively, in Juba. The national average cost of a standard food basket increased by 5 percent compared to January 2023. However, during the last week of February, the food basket cost increased by 10 to 25 percent in some WFP-monitored markets (Rumbek, Wau, Malakal, Kodok, and Old Fangak). Price hikes continued to worsen the vulnerability of poor households in a context where 3 in 4 people live below the international poverty line.
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South Sudan
South Sudan
South Sudan
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