Source: United Nations (video statements)
Briefing by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on Sudan and South Sudan – Security Council, 10139th meeting.
Briefing via VTC from Berlin, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Tom Fletcher described his recent visit to South Sudan and said, “I was told again and again of a feeling of despair and abandonment, and with good reason. The world’s youngest nation stands at a dangerous crossroads. Conflict up, displacement up, hunger up, disease up, attacks on aid workers up, funding down. Two out of every three people need humanitarian support this year. Yet the hyper-prioritised $1.46 billion plan is only 22 percent funded.”
In Jonglei, Fletcher said, he met “families uprooted again and again.”
He said, “women told me that they fled extreme violence. Their homes have been burned down. One said people had been slaughtered like goats. I met a grandmother who carried her 19-year-old granddaughter, born paralysed for days as they fled fighting.”
Fletcher said, “this is what it looks like when parties defy their obligations to protect civilians and undermine the revitalised peace agreement.”
According to OCHA, two-thirds of the population need humanitarian support this year, including over 7.5 million people will need food assistance.