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| Internally displaced people wait to register
for food distribution at a camp at the base of the United Nations
Mission in South Sudan in Bentiu, South Sudan. Five months of civil war
in South Sudan have led to the death of thousands and the displacement
of more than one million people.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
|
WAU
SHILUK, South Sudan — At the beginning of the rainy season every year,
Nyaaker Onwar, 34, would plant the sorghum and vegetables, while her
husband and eldest son herded the cows and caught fish from the White
Nile. They ate what they produced, and when the harvest was bountiful,
they sold the rest in a nearby market town. This year, things are different.
In
February, armed men looted their cows, burned their fishing boat and
kidnapped some of their relatives. Ms. Onwar fled with her husband and
seven children to this village through rain and deep mud. She has been
here for weeks with thousands of people displaced by South Sudan’s civil
war. When she arrived, she was hungry, with no money and few options.
“We had to sell our clothes to buy food,” she said.
Five
months of war in South #Sudan has led to the deaths of thousands and the
displacement of more than one million people. But officials warn that
the tragedy could just be beginning. A serious food crisis is looming
over the country, and the United Nations says that if action is not
taken immediately, the consequences could be dire.
“There
is every likelihood that the worst food crisis in South Sudan’s history
can happen,” said Hilde Johnson, chief of the United Nations mission in
South Sudan. “This can involve a famine of significant proportions.”
The
civil war erupted in December, when clashes broke out between soldiers
loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to his former vice
president, Riek Machar. The conflict soon took on an ethnic dimension, pitting South Sudan’s two largest groups, the Dinka and the Nuer, against each other. Mr. Kiir is a Dinka, while Mr. Machar is a Nuer.
So
many people have been displaced by the fighting that the planting
season was disrupted, creating major concerns about the next harvest.
Fishermen cannot work the rivers. Livestock have been lost and
abandoned. Cholera has broken out in the capital, Juba, and threatens
other parts of the county.
Here
in Wau Shiluk in Upper Nile State, the consequences of war are being
seen, with malnutrition on the rise, along with other ailments caused by
a lack of food and clean water. Aid workers and fleeing residents said
that some displaced people were so hungry that they had resorted to
eating leaves and grass.
“If
the conflict continues, half of South Sudan’s 12 million people will
either be displaced internally, refugees abroad, starving or dead by the
year’s end,” the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned the Security Council this month.
Both
sides in the conflict, under international and regional pressure,
agreed to allow humanitarian corridors to be opened, and a shaky peace
deal was signed on May 9 in the Ethiopian capital to lead to the
creation of a transitional government. But, as with a cease-fire signed in January, fighting resumed within days.
At
a clinic here run by Doctors Without Borders, exhausted mothers stood
in line with thin young children. When volunteer doctors measured the
circumference of Ms. Onwar’s 6-month-old son, the measuring tape’s arrow
landed in the red zone, indicating acute malnutrition.
“When
I was in this area last year, I used to admit 10 cases a week,” said
Mitsuyoshi Morita of Doctors Without Borders. “Now, the scale is much
higher: in a week, we admit hundreds.”
Ajob
Duath is a boy of 4, but he looks a fraction of his age. Incredibly
thin and obviously weak, he sat on the dirt ground, in red shorts,
almost still as a statue, other than the slow movements of his left hand
to ward off flies from his face.
“He has been very sick since the war started,” his mother, Angelina Folo, 20, said tearfully.
At
the advice of doctors, Ms. Onwar carried her son onto a motorboat to
head down the river to the nearest hospital, also run by Doctors Without
Borders. There, medics fed him milk through a tube that ran through his
nose. His tiny hands were tied in cotton bandage wraps so he could not
pull the tube off. His mother looked over his face as she held him in
her arms.
“This is not a good situation,” Ms. Onwar said.
The
hospital is, in fact, a large tent inside a United Nations base in the
city of Malakal. Thousands of displaced people now live there, while
Malakal itself, South Sudan’s second-largest city, is a ghost town.
After
several bloody battles for control of the city between rebels and the
government, nearly all residents have left. In more peaceful times,
Malakal’s market was the place where surrounding farmers, cattle herders
and traders came to sell their goods.
“No
one in the conflict areas is doing what they are supposed to be doing
right now,” said Sue Lautze of the United Nations. “Preparing the land,
moving the livestock and catching fish.”
Even
livestock, a source of milk, meat and income, have felt the brunt of
the conflict. Nearly 10 million of the animals, a third of the total
number in South Sudan, have been scattered by the war, some spotted in
surprising places, Ms. Lautze said.“Some were even seen in the Garamba
National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” she said.
Delivering
assistance to people in need also faces challenges. With the rainy
season underway, South Sudan’s mostly dirt roads become impassible,
cutting off large populations. River barges at times have come under
fire.
“The
only other means of accessing these areas is to airdrop food into
them,” said Mike Sackett of the World Food Program, “which is seven
times more expensive.”
And
then there is the looting. In Malakal, United Nations food warehouses
were looted this year. The warehouses look like skeletons now, with the
tarps that covered them stripped off and empty oil cans and water
purifier packets all over the place.
On
Tuesday, in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, international donors will
gather to discuss the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, with the aim
of raising $1.3 billion in the hope of averting a famine. President
#Obama on Monday authorized up to $50 million in aid to help alleviate the crisis.
“South Sudan needs help,” said Dr. Barnaba Benjamin, South Sudan’s foreign minister.
But given the scale of the crisis, even if donors meet their target goal and act quickly, it may be too late for some.
“It is not really a question whether lives will be lost due to hunger, but how many,” Mr. Sackett said.
For
Ms. Lautze, the issue has personal resonance. She spent 25 years
studying and fighting famine. In 1993, as a young humanitarian worker,
she visited the town of Ayod, where only days later, the freelance
photographer Kevin Carter took his Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of a vulture looming behind a starving South Sudanese child.
“The single best way to prevent the famine is to stop the fighting,” Ms. Lautze said. “If they keep fighting, the game is lost.”
The New York Times
