South Sudan: Sixth Year of Flooding Deepens One of World’s Worst Hunger Crises

The sixth year of flooding in South Sudan combined with aid cuts is exacerbating one of the world’s worst hunger crises with newly arrived refugees fleeing conflict in Sudan resorting to foraging for food and eating leaves to survive, Save the Children said.

This year an estimated 1.4 million people – about one-sixth of the population in the world’s newest country – face the threat of flooding, according to latest data, with above-average rainfall forecast for October and November. This follows five consecutive years of widespread flooding.

So far, communities have already lost farmland, livelihoods, homes and access to schools and health facilities, with 379,000 children and adults displaced by rising water. Cases of waterborne diseases are on the rise and increased snake bites are escalating public health concerns.

This collision of crises has created food shortages across the country with 7.7 million people – or 57% of the population – facing acute levels of hunger and putting 2.3 million children aged under 5 at risk of acute malnutrition.

Save the Children’s South Sudan Country Director Chris Nyamandi said he was concerned that the hunger crisis in the country will worsen and is going underreported despite being one of the most severe globally.

“What lies ahead for children in South Sudan could be catastrophic. The heavy rainfall has already seen towns submerged and it is set to continue for weeks to come. Aid cuts have disrupted what we can provide for children with our budget slashed by $3.1 million this spring, which meant job cuts for our nutrition and child protection experts and fewer supplies.

“All the while, 2.3 million children face acute malnutrition, and more children are coming to the doors of our clinics. To hear of families resorting to eating leaves to cope with hunger indicates a worsening picture. Resolving extreme hunger is down to political choices. The government in South Sudan has a role in finding long term solutions, while global aid cuts need to be reversed urgently before it’s too late.”

Meanwhile, refugee families are arriving from neighboring Sudan to find a dire situation. So far about 1.2 million people have fled across the border during 2.5 years of violence and Maban in Upper Nile state in northeast Sudan is home to the largest number of refugees in the country.

One heavily pregnant woman living in one refugee camp in Maban said she traveled hundreds of miles on foot from Sudan with her three children after her home was destroyed by fighters. They were forced to eat leaves on the roadside to survive.

An official at the same camp said children were so hungry they were resorting to foraging for wild food and eating leaves and roots without knowing which were safe to eat. He said recently eight children became sick from poisonous leaves and one child died.

“When my home was attacked, I just started running with my children. All along the way I had nothing, I just had to eat what I could find including the leaves of trees,” said Asha,* 30, from Sennar state in Sudan after arriving at a reception center for refugees in Maban in August.

The UN has warned that hunger is nearing record levels in South Sudan which was in famine in 2017. About 83,000 people are experiencing famine-like levels of food shortages with the situation particularly acute in the Upper Nile area.

Hiba* arrived at a refugee camp in Maban in May after fleeing Khartoum but said aid cuts were making life impossible. Only 97,000 of the most vulnerable of about 220,000 people in Maban’s four refugee camps now receive food supplies or cash to buy food. This was causing tensions in the camps including violence and looting.

“Once the rainy season finishes many people will leave this camp and go back to Sudan. There is nothing here for us here. We are not given enough food to live on,” said Hiba,* who has five children aged 2 to 13. “I didn’t expect to arrive and find these conditions. I was expecting a safe place.”

Ibrahim,* 64, who lives with 14 children and grandchildren in another refugee camp close by, said he was threatened at gunpoint one night and had 15 goats stolen. He now only has 10 goats as well as a plot of vegetables from which he feeds his family as he receives no food aid.

“But we are not safe here anymore. There is no security and the lack of food is a major challenge and getting worse with more people arriving every day. The aid cuts mean less for everyone,” he said.

Due to funding cuts, Save the Children has had to close operations at a food aid distribution point in a refugee camp where a team was helping children separated from their families during the trip from Sudan or alone because their families had been killed. Save the Children has also had to scale back its child protection work, close youth and early childhood centers in the camps, leaving children with nowhere to go which has driven up the number of street children in Maban market.

Save the Children has worked in South Sudan since 1991, when it was part of Sudan. The child rights organization provides children with access to education, healthcare and nutritional support, child protection services, and families with food security and livelihoods assistance.

Save the Children is ramping up its humanitarian response in South Sudan in 2025 to provide life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable children. Save the Children also provides health, child protection and education programs in emergencies.

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