A SOUTH SUDANESE boy who watched other children drowning as they
fled violence is among the children whose stories are told in a new
report from World Vision.
"We ran without stopping the whole time, day and night," Simon
recalls. "If you stopped, you died. But after running so long, your
heart is pounding and your legs are lead. . . Then we had to cross
a river. If you couldn't swim you drowned. Many children were
screaming and drowning, but you have to keep swimming for your own
survival. Can you imagine?"
The report - Sounding the Alarm: The urgent needs of
children in South Sudan - was published on Monday, as donors
met in Oslo for the South Sudan Humanitarian Conference. Among the
recommendations listed is a call for a "rapid scale-up of emergency
food". The UN estimates that by the end of this year, half of South
Sudan's 12 million people will be either displaced, facing
starvation, ordead.
World Vision is also calling on the UN to relieve overcrowding
in its camps. World Vision reports that children living in
Protection of Civilians camps diplay "higher levels of psychosocial
distress", including frequent crying, screaming, fighting, and
having nightmares.
On Wednesday, Christian Aid warned that a cholera outbreak in
Juba, which has killed nine people, could spread to tens of
thousands.
UNICEF estimates that, across the country, as many as 50,000
children could die from malnutrition; 740,000 children under the
age of five are at high risk of food insecurity. Many are already
resorting to eating wild foods such as bulbs and grasses, it is
reported. More than half a million children have been displaced by
the violence, and more than 9000 have been recruited into armed
forces by both sides.
The Oslo conference, co-chaired by Norway's Foreign Minister,
Børge Brende, and the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian
Affairs, Valerie Amos, sought to raise $1.26 billion. On Tuesday,
the British Government announced a new aid package of £60 million
for South Sudan, taking the total it has donated since the
beginning of the crisis in December to about £93 million.
The international Development Minister, Lynne Featherstone,
said: "We will not look the other way while innocent people go
through unimaginable suffering. . . But, above all, responsibility
for the well-being of the people of South Sudan sits with the
leaders of South Sudan. The Government and Opposition need to take
steps to speed up the delivery of aid. Clearance through customs
for humanitarian goods should take a few days, not almost a
month."
Addressing the Security Council on Monday last week, the UN
Secretry-General, Ban Ki-Moon, also had a strong message for South
Sudan's leaders: "This is an entirely man-made calamity, and it
needs the engagement of all actors to change course. . . They must
cease a senseless power struggle and restore the sense of national
unity that prevailed at the time of independence."
Both sides in the conflict have accused each other of breaching
a peace agreement made two weeks ago (News, 16
May).
