The Medicine Sans Frontiers has reported that at least two children and an adult died of hunger-related conditions at a camp for displaced in Twic County, of Warrap state.
According to MSF, the victims starved to death two days ago, after they ran out of food.
They are among 20,000 people who fled the violent clashes in and around Agok in Abyei Administrative Area four months ago.
In a statement, MSF said the IDPs are living in six makeshift camps in Nyin-Deng Ayuel camp in Twic County.
Samie Al-Subaihi who is the charity’s Emergency Project Coordinator in Twic said the IDPs lack food, proper shelter and water.
“I hear from a community leader in Nyin Deng Ayuel camp that the mother of one of the children was sitting by her five-year-old son’s small, freshly dug grave. Her three other children, all very thin and weak, sit at the entrance of the family’s improvised shelter,” said Al-Subaihi.
However, Al-Subaihi said he could not get the exact picture of what caused the children’s death.
But he said, there is no doubt that the lack of food contributed to the death.
“Walking around the makeshift camps in Twic County, more than anything, this is what the community tells me they’re worried about: the lack of food. In one camp I see people collapsing, physically exhausted. They clearly haven’t had enough food for a while,” he said.
The medical charity said food shortage in the camps was increasingly getting worse since February.
“I don’t see anyone cooking or any food stored in any of the shelters. People tell me that there are almost no fish left in the drying river, forcing many to collect leaves to eat,
“The food shortages in the camps have been getting worse since February, when thousands of people first arrived here after deadly clashes forced them to leave their homes in Agok, 20 kilometres from here,” the MSF coordinator recounted.
In February this year, armed youth from Twic County of Warrap State attacked Anet Market in the Abyei region, displacing tens of thousands.
The ethnic attack was motivated by a contested area between Warrap and Abyei.
The dire humanitarian situation forced the already cash-strapped medical charity to provide almost 500 metric tons of its food in the last few months to the affected population.
MSF also said it is dismayed by the lack of proper response from international organizations and government donors working in South Sudan.