Juba, May 28: Sudan’s autonomous southern government announced on Friday, during a visit by UN relief chief John Holmes, that it had earmarked 35 million dollars (28 million euros) to fight food shortage.
“The situation is bad,” said southern Sudan Vice President Riek Macha after meeting Holmes, who is the UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs.
Macha said his government had initially planned to match international donations of 70 million dollars to combat malnutrition but could only raise half the amount given their limited resources.
But Holmes hailed the contribution as good news, saying he hoped it would help minimise the suffering of southerners.
The United Nations estimates that 15 percent of the population of southern Sudan suffers from acute malnutrition, with women and children disproportionately affected.
On Thursday, Holmes warned during a stop in the southern state of Warrap.
He said that the situation would deteriorate in the coming months and “could jeopardise the final stages of the peace process.”
His four-day mission will also take him to Darfur, an arid western region where 300,000 people have died in an ongoing civil war, according to UN estimates. Khartoum places the death toll at 10,000.
The United Nations estimates another 2.7 million people have been displaced since the conflict broke out between the army and Arab militias against ethnic minority rebels in 2003.
A referendum on the independence of southern Sudan is scheduled for January as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended a two-decade war between Khartoum and rebels in the south.
—Agencies