Conflicts create famine
A state of famine was declared in South Sudan three weeks ago. Three other countries are also at risk: Nigeria. Somalia and, on the other side of the Red Sea, Yemen. "La Croix" answers some crucial questions.
What is the situation in South Sudan?
Famine was declared in South Sudan by the UN on 20 February, the first such emergency since 2011. Back then the famine also affected Somalia. The epicenter of the current crisis is Unity State, in the northern part of South Sudan.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 100,000 people are at immediate risk of death by starvation. These three UN agencies estimate that, over the next few months, this number could reach one million.
“When a state of famine is officially declared, it means that people have already started dying of hunger,” the agencies indicated on 20 February.
The UN uses the formal criteria of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in order to define a situation of famine.
According to this classification, a state of famine exists when the mortality rate is more than 2 people in 10,000 per day; the rate of malnutrition is above 30%, and there are less than 2,100 calories and 4 liters of water per person per day.
The situation in South Sudan is even direr than this. 4.9 million South Sudanese – 42% of the population – are in urgent need of food aid, according to the NGO, Action against Hunger.
Are other countries at risk?
According to the FAO, almost 37 countries need external aid to feed their people. Of these, 28 are in sub-Saharan Africa. Among these 37 countries, three are of real concern: Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen.
“We are facing an unprecedented situation. We have never before been confronted with the threat of famine in four countries at the same time,” stated Kostas Stamoulis, Assistant Director-General of the Economic and Social Development Department at the FAO
In Somalia, 6 million people are at risk, according to the UN. The majority live in rural areas. 5 million people in the northwest of Nigeria and 7.6 million people in Yemen are severely affected by the shortage of food.
According to UNICEF, 1.4 million children in these countries are at risk of dying from hunger.
While famine is an immediate threat to these countries, the whole of East Africa is suffering from food shortages: Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania.
In Central Africa, the situation is also appalling. Hunger is affecting the peoples of Chad, Burundi, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
What are the causes of this recurrence of famine?
The reasons are, above all, human and political. All the regions that are suffering most from hunger are civil war zones.
In South Sudan, the forces of President Salva Kiir, of Dinka origin, and those of the vice-president Riek Machar, who is Nuer, are engaged in a ruthless struggle for power.
Unity State is one of the most violent theaters of this war. Situated 500 km from the capital, Juba, it has the double misfortune of being the ethnic homeland of Riek Machar and the locality of important oil fields.
In Yemen, civilians are the victims of a war between the forces of the deposed president and those of his predecessor. The conflict has been exacerbated since 2015 by the military intervention of neighboring states. Saudi Arabia supports the forces of the deposed president, and Iran supports their opponents.
“All of these forces are preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid in the country,” wrote UN experts in a report published on 23 February.
In Somalia, the Islamist militant group al-Shabab controls the south of the country and carries out terrorist attacks on the capital, Mogadishu.
Finally, in the north-east of Nigeria, the army is failing to eradicate the Islamist group Boko Haram. While the security forces have gained some ground in the towns, they have no control in rural areas.
On top of these internal conflicts, there is state failure. In South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, State power barely functions in each capital city, and not at all in each country as a whole. In Nigeria, the central government abandoned the northwest years ago.
As a result of civil wars and the absence of government control, the local economy, both agricultural and commercial, is nonexistent. Although world food reserves are abundant, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for humanitarian aid to reach the populations in danger.
The peoples of these countries do not have the means to feed themselves and are essentially on their own.
Do climactic conditions play a part in all this?
For the third year in a row, East Africa has been subjected to drought. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), foresees a shortage of water in the coming months. Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and parts of Uganda and Tanzania are particularly affected by drought.
Drought destroys the means of livelihood, spreads illness and triggers large-scale population movement. In many regions, livestock has already been decimated. Harvests are rare, and the price of basic foodstuffs has skyrocketed.
However, experts agree that while drought weakens populations, it is not the main cause of the famine affecting South Sudan and threatening Yemen, Somalia and the north-east of Nigeria.