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Aid agencies lament that the deteriorating humanitarian situation in South Sudan has been made worse by heavy rains that have cut off access to large swathes of the affected population.
"In Jonglei, some 95 percent of roads are inaccessible because of weather conditions," Jennifer Paton, information officer at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Anadolu Agency.
She added that, in Unity State, some 70 percent of roads remained closed.
Paton said that of the some 1.3 million people thought to be internally displaced in South Sudan, as many as 936,000 were in difficult-to-reach areas.
South Sudan has been shaken by violence since last December, when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting to overthrow his regime.
Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have since been displaced in subsequent fighting, while much of the population continues to face an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.
A report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently warned of an impending food-security crisis in the country.
The most affected states are Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei, where between 45 and 70 percent of the population face a crisis or emergency, the report noted.
The most affected populations, meanwhile, are internally-displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities affected by the ongoing conflict, the FAO added.
"Humanitarian organizations are working to find innovative solutions," said Paton. "Because of the poor roads, getting assistance to the people who need it relies on airplanes and helicopters."
"In addition, a group of barges carrying food assistance are en route up the Nile. These carry about 60 times as much food and supplies as a typical air flight," she noted.
-Flooding-
Judith Akelle Waguma, a communications officer for Doctors without Borders (MSF), said the flooding was impacting people's lives across the country.
"In areas where we work, especially in displaced [persons] camps, we see that many villages are flooded," she told AA. "People are living in very bad conditions; they're living in the mud."
She noted that in some parts of the protection-of-civilian sites in Bentiu, for instance, water was so high that "people have to sleep standing up, holding their children out of the water."
Waguma said that in some places, like Leer in Unity State, people had been forced to leave their villages for higher ground.
"They have to leave their houses behind, as well as their planted crops, before the harvest has even started," she lamented.
"People will continue to remain dependent on support from humanitarian aid to feed their families," said the MSF spokesperson.
"Given the huge level of needs," she added, "this will doubtless make humanitarian action extremely challenging."
Waguma went on to assert that the problem transcended the issue of food.
She explained that many people were living out in the open without adequate food, clean water or shelter, making them vulnerable to dehydration, disease and malnutrition.
"The wet conditions mean that children get cold. People are living close to each other, which increases the transmission of respiratory tract infections," she said.
"Children under five are particularly vulnerable," according to the MSF spokeswoman.
The European Commission this week allocated nearly $6.6 million for the children of South Sudan.
Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF representative in South Sudan, said the donation would help broaden the agency's response to the country's nutrition crisis.
"The contribution will also help reunite children who have become separated during the conflict from their families and caregivers," a UNICEF statement "ed Veitch as saying.
"So far, UNICEF and its partners have registered some 5000 separated and unaccompanied children," the statement added.
According to UNICEF, the new funding will also go towards providing vaccines and improving access to water and sanitation.
By Okech Francis
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en - Cuba
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