UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th March, 2021) An appeal for $1.2 billion in emergency relief targets 2.2 million South Sudanese refugees in need of life-sustaining aid, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
"Funding is urgently needed to provide life-sustaining assistance, including shelter, access to safe drinking water, education and health services," UNHCR said in a press release. "food shortages are particularly acute with insufficient funding already leading to ration cuts impacting hundreds of thousands of refugees."
The appeal targets South Sudanese refugees hosted by five neighboring countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, the release said.
The latest appeal complements a separate $1.7 billion South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan for 2021, which targets 6.6 million people in South Sudan, including about 350,000 internal refugees, the release added.
Last year, South Sudan's warring parties declared an official end to six years of civil war between followers of President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, with the formation of a transitional coalition government.
However, efforts to rebuild have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, severe flooding, droughts and swarms of desert locusts, according to UNHCR.
