WFP Representative and Country Director in South Sudan Matthew Hollingworth said the rising food insecurity has pushed 60 percent of the population into hunger and poverty.

 

He said WFP relies on predictable funding to plan ahead to prevent the kind of alarming conditions that precede famine by covering the pressing needs of the most food-insecure communities.

 

"These funds will also help WFP to preposition food stocks for the lean season when humanitarian access is more challenging," he said in a statement issued in Juba.

 

The latest integrated food security phase classification assessment released early this year warned that 7.24 million people will face severe acute hunger at the height of the lean season in between May and July, while 1.4 million children will be acutely malnourished.

 

According to the report, unprecedented floods, the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of the poorest people and increased conflict over the last two years have taken their toll on the world's youngest country.

 

WFP said the contributions provide relief to extremely vulnerable families living in emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger and in dire need of immediate food and nutrition assistance.

 

Funding shortages, however, remain a reality in South Sudan, where humanitarian needs outpace the aid response, Hollingworth said.

 

WFP last week announced that it was forced to cut food rations from April, a decision that will affect 700,000 refugees and internally displaced people who now receive 50 percent of a full ration, down from 70 percent.

 

WFP said it requires 125 million dollars in the next six months to provide life-saving food assistance in sufficient quantities to crisis-affected people, including increased rations to refugees and internally displaced people.