Failed harvests in much of the Horn of Africa, coupled with the international armed conflict in Ukraine and regional conflict, have led the price of grain and cereal in Kapoeta to increase drastically.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2021, we used to buy a kilo of maize flour at 300 South Sudanese Pounds (34 US cents), today the same packet goes for 1,300 (1.5 US dollars),\u201d\u00a0Anyuon says.<\/p>\n
Unable to cope with the inflation, many residents in the area have resorted to more affordable cereals, such as sorghum. Those who cannot afford grain at all are forced to scavenge for wild leaves in nearby forests.<\/p>\n
Children\u2019s lives at risk<\/strong><\/p>\n Joska holds her son, Lolimo, in her arms in Kapoeta Civil Hospital, South Sudan, where he’s receiving treatment for malnutrition (Photo: IFRC\/Anne Wanjiru)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This poor diet is having devastating consequences on children in Kapoeta region.<\/p>\n Yaya Christine Lawrence is a nurse at a stabilization center for malnutrition in Kapoeta Civil Hospital. She attends to 3-year-old Lolimo, who was admitted on 22 July with severe oedema (swelling in the ankles, feet and legs) from poor nutrition.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Lolimo came he was in a really bad state. We have been giving him treatment to clear the fluids before we can now start building up his weight. His case is one of the many hundreds we see in a month,\u201d Yaya explains.<\/p>\n Lolimo\u2019s mother, Joska,\u00a0<\/em>is a single parent and doing her best to raise him, but times are hard.<\/p>\n \u201cAll I can afford to give him occasionally is sorghum and wild leaves. I have no source of livelihood to offer him a better diet,\u201d\u00a0she says.<\/p>\n Supporting the most vulnerable<\/strong><\/p>\n Women-headed households are bearing the brunt of food insecurity in this part of the country. Kapoeta region is hardest hit, with\u00a0more than 274,000 people<\/a>\u00a0classed as severely food insecure.<\/p>\n South Sudan Red Cross (SSRC) recently conducted a needs assessment in the area, giving priority to women-headed households and people with disabilities, with a view to distributing cash to help them boost their livelihoods and put food on their table.<\/p>\n Supported by IFRC and the Japanese government, the SSRC is also actively training community members in Kapoeta on disaster preparedness, including early warning for drought and floods, in groups called Community Disaster Response Team (CDRT).<\/p>\n To mitigate the negative effects of climate change, SSRC volunteers are also planting fruit trees, and distributing seedlings, in Juba and other branches across the country as part of its \u2018green fund\u2019 initiative.<\/p>\n Mango and guava trees are more resistant to drought and only take a few years to start bearing fruit, so will provide a more reliable source of nutrients to local communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe needs related to food insecurity in Kapoeta region and South Sudan are great. If we can strengthen localized response capacity and the community structures, we can address the enormous and unprecedented level of humanitarian needs because of the frequency and intensity of climate-related hazards,\u201d\u00a0says John Lobor, Secretary General of South Sudan Red Cross.<\/p>\n He adds that beyond responding to immediate food needs, SSRC hopes to build resilience, so that families don\u2019t have to grapple with climatic shocks every year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By IFRC Most countries in the Horn of Africa are reporting up to their fourth consecutive failed rainy season. Attributable to climate change, drought has pushed communities across the continent to life-threatening levels of hunger. Anne Wanjiru, IFRC Senior Communications Officer, reports on the situation in South Sudan. Kapoeta, in[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-easter-equatoria-state","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/dryness.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482","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=16482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16485,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482\/revisions\/16485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Mother-300x169.jpg\")
<\/p>\n