UN gave seeds to starving S Sudanese farmers. They ate them
A convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance provided by the World Food Program (WFP) to Southern Sudanese refugees, drives in the North Kordofan state, on May 19, 2017. More than 95,000 South Sudanese have entered Sudan as thousands continue to flee war and famine in the world's youngest nation. PHOTO | ASHRAF SHAZLY | AFP
What you need to know:
- Famine that has adversely affected part of South Sudan may soon spread as humanitarian agencies struggle to deliver sufficient aid.
- Mr Beasley also praised a US child-feeding programme that Mr Trump has proposed to eliminate.
NEW YORK
United Nations has warned that South Sudan’s hunger crisis may worsen due to unchecked corruption, lagging donations and lack of political will to end the country’s civil war.
Famine that has adversely affected part of South Sudan may soon spread as humanitarian agencies struggle to deliver sufficient aid, said José Graziano da Silva, director of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Washington DC, on Tuesday.
To illustrate the desperation now gripping millions of South Sudanese, Mr da Silva told a think-tank audience: “We just distributed seeds in South Sudan. And they ate them — all the seeds. And we can't blame them for that.”
David Beasley, director of the UN's World Food Programme, added that “rebel forces in South Sudan will lay down their arms if they can get food for their families.”
LOSS OF LIVES
Funding for aid has not come close to what's needed to prevent massive loss of lives to famine, said Mr Beasley who recently visited South Sudan and Somalia with Mr da Silva.
“Donors are exhausted to fund a situation where they don't see results,” Mr da Silva observed. Conflict is the main cause of hunger in South Sudan, but the warring parties have failed to make peace, he noted.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), a grouping of eight countries in the Horn of Africa, “has the political power” to help end the fighting in South Sudan, Mr da Silva observed, “But they are divided. Half support one side [in South Sudan's civil war]; half the other.”
MEDIA ATTENTION
Mr Beasley suggested that lack of media attention is also responsible for the failure to provide adequate relief in South Sudan and other countries experiencing severe food shortages.
“In France, all you hear is Le Pen, Le Pen, Le Pen,” he said in regard to right-wing leader Marine Le Pen. “In the UK, all you hear is Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. And in the US it's Trump, Trump, Trump.”
A South Sudanese refugee child stands at the UNHCR camp of al-Algaya in Sudan's White Nile state, south of Khartoum, on May 17, 2017.
More than 95,000 South Sudanese have entered Sudan so far this year, the UN said, as thousands continue to flee war and famine in the world's youngest nation. PHOTO | ASHRAF SHAZLY | AFP
“People are not hearing messages” about hunger in South Sudan, Somalia, northeast Nigeria and Yemen, the World Food Program chief remarked. “It's dampened by all the clutter out there.”
Mr Beasley, a former governor of the US state of South Carolina, exuded confidence, however, that “the US government, from the White House to the Capitol, will be there when it counts.”
AMERICA FIRST
“If you want to put America first,” Mr Beasley said in reference to President Trump's slogan, “you'll fund the World Food Programme and the FAO.”
Investments in food aid will save the US and other world powers hundreds of millions of dollars because such assistance is an effective tool in countering violent extremism, he argued.
Mr Beasley also praised a US child-feeding programme that Mr Trump has proposed to eliminate.
He said he saw the positive effects of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education initiative during a recent visit to a slum in Nairobi.
But in calling for its termination, the White House said the school-related feeding effort “is duplicative of US Agency for International Development programmes, lacks evidence that it is being effectively implemented and has unaddressed oversight and performance monitoring challenges.”
