Photo: courtesy of iaea.org

Over one hundred thousand children in the country are facing acute malnutrition, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund has said.

A Nutrition Specialist for UNICEF Regional Office for East and Southern Africa, Patrick Codia, told Eye Radio that most of the children affected by food shortage are in greater Upper Nile region.

Mr. Codia said UNICEF has developed a nutrition program for children with nutrition deficiencies.

“Basically, most of those children are admitted into the program in five states, basically Jonglei, Northern Bahr Al Ghazal, Unity, Upper Nile and Warrap,” he said.

“The program is basically a facility where a child can get his or her ready – to – use therapeutic food. So this is a small bucket of fortified food that she can take home and eat and come back to get a new ration.”

Mr. Codia said the implementation of the program has been affected by the violence in the country.

“So far, the coverage is very low because of the reduced capacity due to the conflict, the looting of warehouses for implementing partners for UNICEF and others, and also security issues.”

Patrick Codia calls on UNICEF partner organizations to accelerate their efforts to ensure that there is consistent and quality humanitarian response to areas affected by the conflict.