Top UN official says deliberate starvation in South Sudan could be war crime

WASHINGTON – A senior United Nations official has just said that deliberate starvation in South Sudan could be a war crime, a week after a United Nations official said the world’s youngest country is facing one of the worse famines in years.

“I was just there literally on the ground talking with leadership meeting with people who are starving to death [and] most of this is man-made conflict driven,” David Beasley, the director of WFP told CNN from Rome.

Last week, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said during his opening remarks at a briefing to Member States on the humanitarian situation in South Sudan that many people are under brink of starvation.

“Conflict and climate shocks have left six people, in ten, food insecure. More than 100,000 are either one step away from, or already in, famine conditions. And with thousands displaced at this critical start to the planting season, many more people are on the brink,” Lowcock said.

“Conflict, two years of heavy flooding and Covid-19 have triggered livelihood losses, high levels of malnutrition, repeated disease outbreaks, and left two thirds of the country without access to clean drinking water,” he added.

He further stressed that “We have no time to lose. The rainy season is coming, and we need to pre-position food and other supplies now to avert famine. The earlier we act, the further that money goes, and the more lives we can save.”