South Sudanese flee country as ‘potential for genocide’ grows

More than 10 percent of South Sudan’s 11.3 million people have fled the country in a mass exodus that is now accelerating, the United Nations reports.

In addition to the nearly 1.3 million South Sudanese living in refugee camps, about 1.6 million more have been displaced inside the country, the UN says. Some 200,000 are sheltering in or near UN peacekeepers’ bases.

About 40 percent of South Sudan’s remaining inhabitants are facing impending famine, the UN’s food agencies warn.

At least five simultaneous disease outbreaks are threatening lives as well, international health specialists say. Malaria, measles, cholera, guinea worm and kala azar (a parasitic killer) are all spreading amidst a breakdown in sanitation and health care resulting from the three-year-long civil war.

At the same time, “there is a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines with potential for genocide,” Adama Dieng, the UN special advisor on preventing genocide, declared on Friday at the conclusion of a five-day visit to South Sudan.

““Throughout the week, conversations with all actors have confirmed that what began as a political conflict has transformed into what could become an outright ethnic war,” he added.

Close to 6000 people fleeing these conditions entered Uganda on a single day earlier this month, bringing the total number of South Sudanese refugees in that neighbouring country to over half a million.

“The current extremely high sustained trend of arrivals is expected to continue, and puts pressure on all aspects of the response, which is currently very under-resourced,” the UN refugee agency said in an update last week.

Another 323,000 South Sudanese refugees have gone to Ethiopia, with about 600 arriving on average each day.

Life is so difficult in South Sudan that more than a quarter-million of its citizens have sought refuge in Sudan, the country from which it separated five years ago. Many of the refugees have crossed into Sudan’s Darfur region, where war has been raging for 13 years.

Similarly, about 60,000 South Sudanese have fled to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of fighting that has taken tens of thousands of lives in recent years.

Kenya has received 90,000 South Sudanese refugees, and 5000 have moved into Central African Republic, where another civil war continues sporadically.

Many of the South Sudanese who have recently entered Uganda say they were motivated to leave by “arbitrary killings, forced recruitment of boys and men by armed groups, continued conflict in towns and villages, food insecurity and lack of services,” the UN refugee agency recounts.

“New arrivals from Kajo Keji (near the Uganda border) allege that the civilian population have been given 21 days’ notice to leave by militias, who are reportedly gearing up for war.”

A plea for $251 million in donor funding for South Sudanese refugee assistance has drawn a tepid response. Less than $50 million has been received “despite the rapidly growing need,” the UN refugee agency says.

Drought, hunger add to South Sudan’s woes

A serious food crisis in the north of South Sudan is reaching critical levels, as a biting drought across much of east Africa serves up even more woes for the troubled country.
In Northern Bahr Al Gazal it is not the incessant cycles of violence wreaking havoc elsewhere in the country that concerns locals most, but the lack of rain and a deep economic crisis.
At a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the town of Aweil, Lucia Adeng holds her three-year-old son Wek Wol Wek, his breathing shallow and rapid and his skin paper thin around his emaciated arms.
“It’s not always a total lack of food, but there is definitely a shortage. Sometimes we have food at home, and sometimes we don’t,” she says.
Several children like him lie silent in their mothers’ arms, their eyes downcast, as they are poked and prodded by doctors. The clinic is currently recording about 60 cases of malnutrition a week, according to MSF.
Out in the fields, farmer Tong Deng looks miserably at his damaged sorghum crops and tiny yield from the lack of rains. For others, when the rains came, it was too much, with sudden massive downpours in August causing flooding which also ruined their crops.
– 40 percent going hungry –
“Our harvest has been low because during the planting period the hunger situation was very severe for us and we were not able to cultivate much land. We were hungry,” Deng.
“At the same time, what we cultivated suffered a dry spell which didn?t allow a good germination, and later the few crops were affected by the sorghum midge.”
At the local market, several stalls are closed and offerings are meagre.
The World Food Programme (WFP) warns that as many as 4.8 million people ? about 40 percent of the country?s population — were going hungry and that the situation would only get worse.
The Famine Early Warning System Network (Fews Net) last month said some households were already at the “catastrophic” famine level 5, meaning “starvation, death, and destitution are evident.”
Others were going several days without a meal, placing them in “emergency” level.
With roads from Sudan blocked to trade goods, and those to Uganda fraught with danger due to clashes between government and rebel forces, the inflation in prices of certain cereals is as much as 1,000 percent in some states, according to the National Statistics Bureau.
A depreciation of the South Sudanese pound has also hit hard.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says that more than 70,000 people from the region have migrated to Sudan to escape the harsh conditions.
In other parts of the country, it is fighting between opposition forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar and his rival President Salva Kiir that has displaced hundreds of thousands, severely impacting the cycle of planting and harvesting.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011. According to the reports of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), food insecurity has increased 500 percent since 2012.
The country descended into war over the political rivalry between Machar and Kiir in 2013, and a fragile peace deal signed in 2015 is in tatters, with fighting erupting again in July and a surge of violence in recent weeks.
The Pacific warming El Nino caused one of the worst droughts in decades in 2015 across eastern and southern Africa and the 2016 rainy season has been slow to start, meaning the crisis could drag on for several months.

Buhari asks warring parties in South Sudan to honour Peace Agreement

President Muhammadu Buhari has called on leaders of parties to the lingering conflict in South Sudan to honour the terms of the August 2015 Peace Agreement signed by them.

Speaking at the meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council on the Situation in South Sudan held on the sidelines of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA71), in New York on Monday, the President described the unconditional implementation of the Agreement as the “cornerstone of peace and reconciliation” in that country.

He noted that whatever reservations that may exist against the agreement, “should under no circumstances be the pretext for failure to implement the Agreement.”

According to President Buhari, “it is regrettable that lack of unity and political progress” in South Sudan has remained a major obstacle to peace, stressing that “Africa and indeed the entire world had high hopes and expectations for South Sudan as an independent nation.”

He noted that recurrent conflict and political instability with grave human rights and humanitarian consequences have overshadowed any progress that might have been made towards South Sudan’s development.

In order to strengthen the peace process in the beleaguered East-Central African nation and newest member-state of the United Nations, President Buhari also stressed the need for stronger cooperation among the United Nations, the African Union and Intergovernmental Authority for Development and other stakeholders for the immediate deployment of the Regional Protection Force in South Sudan, as mandated by Security Council Resolution 2304.

He condemned in strong terms crimes against civilians of all ethnic groups and political parties and attacks on United Nations Mission personnel as well as local and international aid workers in South Sudan, noting that perpetrators of such heinous crimes “must not be allowed to go unpunished.”