A South Sudanese child displaced by recent fighting in Mingkaman, where UNICEF is providing humanitarian assistance.
Conflict leaves 3.75 million children in need of help; famine is the newest threat they face.
Six months of conflict in the young country of South Sudan has placed
6 million South Sudanese in need of humanitarian assistance—half of
them children. These children and their families were already struggling
with basic needs following decades of civil war.
The fighting has forced more than 1.3 million people to flee their
homes in search of safety—including 550,000 children. More than half are
internally displaced, living out in the open—in increasingly worsening
conditions as the rainy season begins. Cholera outbreaks have been confirmed in Juba and two South Sudanese states.
The conflict has torn apart South Sudan's agriculture-based economy.
With farmers unable to plant crops, food is growing exceedingly scarce.
The U.N. warns of a situation that could turn "more grave than anything
the continent has seen since the mid-1980s." 4 million people may be
pushed close to starvation by year's end. Unless malnutrition treatment
is scaled up immediately, 50,000 children are likely to die.
Africa|Food Crisis Worsens in South Sudan as Civil War Is Displacing Millions
Photographs: Crisis in South Sudan
Internally displaced people wait to register
for food distribution at a camp at the base of the United Nations
Mission in South Sudan in Bentiu, South Sudan. Five months of civil war
in South Sudan have led to the death of thousands and the displacement
of more than one million people.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Severely malnourished Nyajuba, 2, is held by
her mother, Elizabeth Garyang, as she is weighed in the outpatient
department of Doctors Without Borders in the camp for internally
displaced from Juba, at the base of the United Nations Mission.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times 
Simon Kwoltop, 22, grinds sorghum in a camp
for internally displaced Nuer at the base of the United Nations Mission
in Bentiu. The civil war erupted in December, when clashes broke out
between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to his
former vice president, Riek Machar. The conflict soon took on an ethnic
dimension, pitting South Sudan’s two largest groups, the Dinka and the
Nuer, against each other. Mr. Kiir is a Dinka, while Mr. Machar is a
Nuer.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Elizabeth Skutey, 18, from Mayoum, waits for
water with other internally displaced people at the base of the United
Nations Mission in Bentiu. “If the conflict continues, half of South
Sudan’s 12 million people will either be displaced internally, refugees
abroad, starving or dead by the year’s end,” Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon warned the United Nations Security Council this month.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Internally displaced men slaughter two cows
on the perimeter of the camp inside the base of the United Nations
Mission in Bentiu. So many people have been displaced by the fighting
that the planting season was seriously disrupted, creating major
concerns about the next harvest. Fisherman cannot work the rivers.
Livestock have been lost and abandoned. Cholera has broken out in the
capital, Juba, and threatens other parts of the county.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Jay Thiep, a government soldier who was found
unconscious near the airport suffering from severe malnutrition, sat in
front of a tent clinic at the base of the United Nations Mission in
South Sudan in Bentiu. Mr. Thiep was thought to have been hiding without
food for roughly three weeks in the bush following a retreat of
government soldiers from Bentiu.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Bakhita Peter, 19, who is malnourished, sits
with her child, Ajak Deng, 5 months, who is being treated for
malnutrition and additional complications at a tent hospital run by
Doctors Without Borders at the base of the United Nations Mission base
in Malakal, in the Upper Nile region.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Nyajuba is held by her mother as she is
measured in the outpatient department of Doctors Without Borders in the
camp for internally displaced at the base of the United Nations Mission
in Juba.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
A displaced boy collects water from puddles
at dawn at the base of the United Nations Mission in Bentiu. “There is
every likelihood that the worst food crises in South Sudan’s history
can happen,” said Hilde Johnson, chief of the United Nations mission in
South Sudan.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Internally displaced civilians live in
rudimentary conditions in the camp at the base of the United Nations
Mission base in Juba.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Internally displaced men carry bags of
sorghum during a food distribution at the base of the United Nations
Mission in Bentiu. Delivering assistance to populations in need also
faces challenges. With the rainy season underway, South Sudan’s mostly
dirt roads become impassible. River barges at times have come under
fire.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Internally displaced people wait to register
for a food distribution at a camp at the base of the United Nations
Mission in Bentiu. “South Sudan needs help,” said Dr. Barnaba Benjamin,
South Sudan’s foreign minister. But given the scale of the crisis, even
if donors meet their target goal and act quickly, it may be too late for
some.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Workers clean up the ransacked remains of the
teaching hospital in Malakal, in the Upper Nile region, after parts of
it were burned, looted, and more than a dozen patients were shot in
their hospital beds.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
A human skull and a body bag are among the
remains of the ransacked teaching hospital in Malakal. After several
bloody, back-and-forth battles for control of the city between rebels
and the government, nearly all residents have left.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times 
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