By Manas James<\/p>\n
Local authorities in Alali Payam Akobo County, Jonglei State are alarmed over a dire humanitarian situation in the area.<\/strong><\/p>\n Residents have been reportedly going hungry for months amidst the absence of food handouts and scarce rains.<\/p>\n Peter Oballa Ojulu, the Alali Payam administrator said that lack of rains has exacerbated the situation which he said could further worsen in the coming months if no aid reaches them.<\/p>\n \u201cAlali is cut off from Akobo town, and even the rest of the state,\u201d he said, \u201cSince the war in 2013, we have not received any food aid or anything else from Bor or Juba,\u201d<\/p>\n The Anyuak people are self-reliant agriculturalists, but a lack of rain is now rendering them food insecure and vulnerable as they haven\u2019t cultivated, and no aid agency came to their rescue.<\/p>\n The local official however earnestly pleaded for aid.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, our appeal is that we are assisted with irrigation equipment so that our people are able to cultivate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ojulu said that people had prepared for farming as usual, but it rained just once, leaving all crops drying up.<\/p>\n He added that they were losing hope on next cultivation season since they were told there will be no rains.<\/p>\n Philip Omot Jook, the Akobo County paramount chief, acknowledged the situation is dire.<\/p>\n \u201cOur situation here in Alali is not good. We are suffering with no food and no health services because it has not been raining\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The population of Alali Payam is estimated at about 300 households.<\/p>\n Hon. John Okei Okei, a Member of Parliament in Jonglei state legislative assembly, also appealed for aid saying efforts to rescue the community have failed because hiring an aircraft is costly.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, the situation is not good because it has not been raining. No services have been reaching our people from either government or aid agencies,\u201d the MP observed.<\/p>\n Last month, we appealed for people injured in an attack to be airlifted but there was no response until we lost one person while being carried on a stretcher to Ethiopia, he narrated the situation of citizens.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, now for the situation to be rescued we appealed to UNMISS and aid agencies to intervene by even just extending their flight to Alali so that we supply our people back home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Since the beginning of this year, residents in parts of the country have often complained about scarce or delayed rains.<\/p>\n On 24 May, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) announced drier-than-usual conditions throughout June to September across the Horn of Africa with South Sudan, inclusive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Manas James Local authorities in Alali Payam Akobo County, Jonglei State are alarmed over a dire humanitarian situation in the area. Residents have been reportedly going hungry for months amidst the absence of food handouts and scarce rains. Peter Oballa Ojulu, the Alali Payam administrator said that lack of[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jonglei-state","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14575,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14574\/revisions\/14575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}