A funding shortfall could leave South Sudan’s most vulnerable refugees without U.N. food aid within weeks, the world body warned Friday.
"Without immediate and urgent funding, the final food and nutrition assistance for the most vulnerable 240,000 refugees will be provided in September, cutting off a lifeline for hundreds of thousands already living on the edge," two U.N. agencies said in a joint statement.
"These are the last remaining refugees of the 650,000 who had been receiving food support across the country," said the World Food Programme and the UNHCR refugee agency.
The warning comes with up to 3,000 refugees and returnees arriving from Sudan each week seeking food, shelter and safety, straining already overstretched humanitarian resources.
"After more than two decades on the humanitarian frontlines, I have rarely seen such a painful gap between scale of human suffering and the resources available to respond," said Adham Effendi WFP's deputy country director for South Sudan.
