More than seven million people in conflict-hit South Sudan, nearly half the country's population, urgently require food assistance as violence, economic hardship and displacement continue to deepen the humanitarian crisis, the United Nations said Friday.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme denounced the "alarming situation" in the world's youngest sovereign state, saying it the organization was in "a tight race against time" to scale up its response.
"We are talking about 7.2 million people who are in urgent need of food assistance," Mutinta Chimuka, WFP's country director for South Sudan, told reporters in Geneva.
"The situation is critical and demands immediate attention to save lives of people who desperately need assistance, she said by video link from the city of Bor in South Sudan's central Jonglei state.
The U.N.'s humanitarian aid chief Tom Fletcher warned last month that the East African country risked slipping into "full-scale famine and collapse."
