Women carry children and plastic bags; men walk with almost nothing. Every week, about 3,000 refugees and returnees cross into South Sudan from Sudan. Many arrive hungry, exhausted and with little or no money.
But the food assistance they depend on is also running out. More than one million vulnerable people could lose access to life-saving food and nutrition assistance by October unless additional resources are secured, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). In Malakal, one of the agency’s key logistics hubs in the Upper Nile state, food stocks have fallen from 10,000 metric tonnes at this time last year to less than 300 tonnes now.
The drop comes as humanitarian agencies face shrinking resources while needs continue to rise, WFP says. WFP assistant executive director Matthew Hollingworth visited Renk and Malakal in Upper Nile and Pigi county in Jonglei state this month, where he witnessed firsthand the pressures facing communities already struggling with conflict, displacement, hunger and climate shocks. Hollingworth told Al Jazeera that the war in Sudan had driven up prices and put additional pressure on a country already stretched by the influx of refugees.
Prices have gone so much higher due to the complexity of importing goods from Sudan,” he said. We need to reach vulnerable people across the country.” Peter Maker, a displaced person in Pigi, said insecurity and the arrival of people displaced from other areas had made it difficult to farm or find work. Our main issues are insecurity and lack of access to farmland,” he told Al Jazeera.
He attributed much of the local suffering to political leadership and divisions between communities, while saying people currently survive by sharing resources, relying on God and receiving occasional aid. Renk, in Upper Nile state near the border with Sudan, has become a major entry point for people fleeing the war that erupted there in April 2023. More than 1.4 million refugees and returnees have crossed into South Sudan since the war erupted in Sudan in 2023, according to the World Food Programme.
Many arrive after journeys marked by checkpoints, extortion and violence, with little idea of what comes next. Zainab Musa, a mother of six staying at a transit centre in Renk, recently crossed from Sudan. She said conditions were difficult and there was little food.
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