A civil society group has cancelled a fundraising initiative for the internally displaced people in Yei River State due to a sharp rise in the number of the IDPs.

Humanity South Sudan organized the fundraising to mobilize enough assistance to more than 10,000 IDPs, who were sheltering at a church compound in Yei Town without humanitarian assistance.

They fled their homes earlier this month due to clashes between the government and the SPLM in Opposition forces in Lutaya, Dam and Sopiri residential areas within Yei.

But Humanity South Sudan says the number of IDPs has risen to more than 70,000. The civil society was referring to data from an assessment by the church and the UNHCR.

“We have called this fundraising activity off; one reason is that the number of IDPs and people who are in dire need have increased beyond our capacity. From the initial stage we needed the fundraising for only about 400 displaced persons and the number up to today is increasing up to 70,000,” says Bongiri Peter Ladu, the Executive Director.

“I think you understand and believe with me that whatever efforts we put to fundraise will not cope up with that,” he said.

However, Mr Bongiri believes that the initiative which has now fallen short of achieving the target has “raised a loud voice on what we aimed at, which is emergency help and support to the people who are suffering and of course this loud voice reached out to different partners and of course currently NGOs are coming up to do assessment.”