UN chief: 1 million South Sudanese may face famine
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is warning that up to a million people could face famine in conflict-torn South Sudan unless there is immediate action.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is warning that up to a million people could face famine in conflict-torn South Sudan unless there is immediate action.
The UN’s food agency launched an urgent appeal Wednesday to raise $77 million (57 million euros) for South Sudan, threatened by a major food crisis as basic commodities run out.
Behind barbed wire fencing Peter Tap cuts a forlorn figure, one of 27,000 South Sudanese seeking safety at a United Nations base in an area that has suffered some of the country’s worst violence since mid-December.
The death tolls are huge and the individual incidents gruesome. One estimate says nearly 10,000 people have been killed in South Sudan in a month of warfare, while in neighboring Central African Republic combatants in Muslim-vs.-Christian battles have beheaded children.
Officials in Ethiopia say that direct talks between the warring factions of South Sudan have stalled.
The first United Nations peacekeeping reinforcements arrived Friday in South Sudan, where the government is said to have agreed an immediate ceasefire after nearly two weeks of heavy fighting with rebels.
South Sudan’s government agreed Friday at a meeting of East African leaders to end hostilities against rebels accused of trying to overthrow the young country, but the cease-fire was quickly thrown into doubt because the head of the rebellion was not invited.
Thousands of South Sudanese have been killed in over a week of violence with reports of bodies piled in mass graves, the UN said Tuesday, amid ongoing battles threatening to slide into civil war.
Senior UN officials warned Tuesday that the ethnic killings being carried out in South Sudan could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity punishable under international law.
The UN Security Council will likely send thousands of additional soldiers to violence-wracked South Sudan to reinforce its mission and help it better protect civilians, diplomats said Monday.
South Sudanese soldiers have carried out a string of ethnic killings, including a massacre, house-to-house killings and rapes, following an outbreak of fighting more than a week ago, several eyewitnesses have told AFP.
A United Nations official said Tuesday between 400 to 500 people are believed to have been killed in South Sudan, where two days of fighting between rival troops has sent thousands of terrified civilians fleeing an alleged coup bid.
Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Latin America for the first time since taking office, leading the U.S. delegation to a 35-nation organization he once disparaged as ineffective and nearly irrelevant.
