JUBA, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The World Food Program (WFP) said it requires 286 million U.S. dollars between June and November to scale up the humanitarian response in South Sudan.
The funding includes 53 million dollars for the crisis response in Sudan, where the lack of necessities, combined with violence and uncertainty, has forced many people to flee their homes, the WFP said in its latest report released Monday evening in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
"Given the severe funding gaps, WFP started scaling down its operations in January 2024, from over 7 million people targeted under its country strategic plan (2023-2025) to 4.2 million," it said.
The WFP said that it required 248,000 metric tonnes of food in 2024, of which it has allocated 156,000 metric tonnes or 63 percent of the annual requirements.
According to the WFP, 9 million people require humanitarian assistance in 2024.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an innovative multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making, forecasts that 7.1 million people risk extreme food insecurity during the April to July lean season -- the period between harvests when households run out of stored food -- with over 2.3 million experiencing emergency and catastrophe food insecurity levels, respectively, including Sudanese returnees.
The IPC also estimates that 1.6 million children and 870,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls will be moderately or severely malnourished during this lean season.
According to the WFP, the ongoing Sudan conflict has exacerbated the dire situation, with 26,000 new arrivals entering the country in April, bringing the total number of people crossing into South Sudan since the conflict began to 656,000.
In April, the WFP reported that it had distributed 9,748 metric tonnes of food and 3.5 million dollars in cash-based transfers to 1.4 million people, accounting for 52 percent of those targeted that month. ■
