In Doro, a refugee settlement in South Sudan’s Upper Nile region, Omer* sits with his wife Nafeesa* and their three children, exhausted after a two-and-a-half-month journey from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. They moved by night, hiding from snipers and gunfire, surviving on unharvested sorghum taken from abandoned fields. Their ordeal, reported by Times UK, is emblematic of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese fleeing the country’s escalating civil war, only to face a harsh and uncertain life in South Sudan, where hunger is approaching famine.
At the reception centre, Nafeesa is screened by health workers and referred to a malnutrition site nearby. She gave birth by the roadside after arriving in South Sudan, aided only by strangers offering food and shelter. Families now wait on reed mats with mud-caked feet to have their children weighed, while sharing shelters with other households. “We are relieved to be here, but we don’t know how to begin life again. There is no food,” Omer said.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, is struggling under the weight of nearly a quarter-million refugees in its Upper Nile region. Years of conflict, corruption, and the siphoning of oil revenues have left the health infrastructure in tatters. Hospitals such as Bunj in Maban county have dwindling supplies, empty drug cupboards, and staff on strike due to unpaid salaries, as reported by Times UK. Children in the paediatric ward are severely malnourished, with some weighing less than seven kilos, while expired food formula and scarce medical supplies further imperil their survival.
The World Food Programme now feeds only 97,000 people across Maban’s four camps, fewer than half of the refugees in the area. Inflation has rendered meager rations nearly worthless, with families struggling to find even a single piece of fruit or grain. In Bor State Hospital, a 16-month-old child lies dangerously underweight with pneumonia, attended by just two nurses who survive on minimal pay. Aid cuts, particularly following the closure of USAid, have compounded the crisis, leaving thousands of vulnerable children at risk.
Political instability adds another layer of uncertainty. Renewed clashes between government forces and militias in Upper Nile, coupled with Vice-President Riek Machar’s trial and tensions over militia loyalty, threaten to plunge South Sudan back into full-scale conflict. The UN reports that armed clashes are occurring on a scale not seen since the 2017 cessation of hostilities, while hunger monitoring agencies note that food aid has failed to reach some conflict-affected areas. Save the Children International warns that operations have had to be cut nearly in half, leaving millions without critical support.
Once a nation seen as a beacon of hope after decades of war, South Sudan now struggles to provide even basic survival for its citizens and the influx of refugees from Sudan. The combination of violence, hunger, and collapsing aid networks paints a grim picture for the next several years.
