Millions Stranded as Conflict and Aid Cuts in South Sudan Drive Surge in Suffering

This year, South Sudan has seen the least amount of funding ever provided by donors since the country was created in 2011.

With only a month of the year left, the country’s $1.7 billion emergency Humanitarian Need and Response Plan for 2025 is less than 41 per cent funded.  

In Renk, one of the country’s most densely populated and vulnerable towns where up to 1,000 people are arriving at transit centres every day, Oxfam is being forced to scale down its operations there by 70 per cent over the next month.

Unless new funding is secured by February, Oxfam will have to shut down its operations there entirely.

Shaima Ali, a refugee from Sudan selling charcoal outside her home in Renk, South Sudan. (Photo: Herison Philip Osfaldo/Oxfam)

Shabnam Baloch, Oxfam’s South Sudan Country Director, said:

“These aid cuts are catastrophic for the millions of people already grappling with extreme hunger and disease.

We are now confronted with the heartbreaking reality of having to scale back our humanitarian response and in Renk, potentially have to close entirely in less than three months.

It is as though the world is turning its back on those who need help the most, at the very moment when their survival hangs in the balance.”  

Many people who have fled the deadly conflict and hunger in Sudan are living in the border town of Renk, where communities are grappling with multiple health crises. Currently, there is only one clean water tap for every 433 people in one transit centre – almost half the accepted humanitarian standard. 

New cases of cholera, acute watery diarrhoea and Hepatitis E continue to be reported, with 450 (35 per cent) hospitals or health clinics either closed or severely disrupted.  

A recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for South Sudan found that nearly 6 million people are experiencing acute hunger; this includes nearly 1.3 million people with very high acute malnutrition and an increased mortality rate.

The report forecasts that these figures will worsen, reaching 7.5 million people in crisis by April next year. Oxfam warns there is a significant risk of many more being tipped into catastrophic levels of hunger as support continues to be removed. 

Maria, a returnee from Sudan said:

“Few organizations are now operating, unlike before when there were many. Now there is poor sanitation and hygiene, many water taps no longer work.

We fear for the fact we no longer see the help we had before. Households are now minimising the amount of water they use, and we could see a worse situation where there is little or no water at all. Yet water is life.” 

Oxfam is also concerned that the huge cuts to humanitarian assistance are directly translating into increased vulnerability and heightened protection risks for women and girls.   

Baloch said: “Desperate families will be forced to turn to harmful coping mechanisms if they are unable to get any support. Awful consequences, such as child marriage or sending women and girls to forage for resources in unsafe areas, where they risk exposure to sexual violence and exploitation. 

“We urge International donors not to forget what is happening in Sudan and the knock-on impact on South Sudan, where millions of vulnerable people could be left to starve or face a rapid spread in disease if the vital lifeline of aid is not urgently restored.”