South Sudan

War and famine have forced more than 2 million children in South Sudan to flee their homes, creating the most worrying refugee crisis in the world, the United Nations said May 8.

Almost 1.4 million children suffering from severe malnutrition could die this year from famine in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the UN children’s agency said Monday.
In Yemen, where war has been raging for nearly two years, 462,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition while 450,000 children are severely malnourished in northeast Nigeria.

South Sudan on Feb. 20 declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly five million hungry in what aid groups called a "man-made" tragedy.

Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan's National Bureau of Statistics, said some parts of the northern Greater Unity region "are classified in famine, or... risk of famine."

This is not an article on South Sudan, which is just as well because the conflicts there are almost fractal in their complexity. The mini-war last weekend between the forces of President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, which killed more than 270 people and saw tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships used in the capital, Juba, is part of a pattern that embraces the whole country.

Fighting at a United Nations compound sheltering people fleeing conflict in South Sudan has killed 18 people, including two Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) workers, the international medical aid group said. 

Thousands of South Sudanese have fled fighting and extreme hunger in recent weeks, the United Nations says in a report, as leaders struggle to honor a peace deal on the ground.

A Russian cargo plane crashed onto a river bank shortly after takeoff from Juba airport in South Sudan killing at least 41 people.

Among the dead are passengers of the plane and people on the the ground, according to media reports.

The death toll in South Sudan from the explosion of a fuel truck this week has risen to 182, a regional official said on Sept.18.

The blast occurred on Sept.16 as crowds gathered around the tanker to gather fuel after it had veered off the road. An official had earlier said the toll could keep rising as South Sudan did not have adequate facilities to treat the burns. 

The United States on Aug. 19 circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution proposing an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against South Sudan if President Salva Kiir refuses to sign a peace accord ending the country's civil war.

The number of South Sudanese civilians sheltering in United Nations bases has risen above 150,000 for the first time in 18 months of civil war, the U.N. said on July 7.

A total of 153,769 civilians are now seeking safety behind the barbed wire of six peacekeeping bases of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).