About 180,000 South Sudanese Refugees in Ethiopia may receive half of the food rations they are receiving now by September if donors do not give additional funding to the World Food Program, the United Nations has said.

The WFP had appealed for $211 million for South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia. It received only 25% of the funding.

The number of South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia will reach three hundred thousand by the end of this year, John Ging, Operations Director for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the media at the UN Headquarters in New York.

“The World Food Program is suffering the same as the rest of the humanitarian community in terms of shortfall of funding, and that means if they don’t get the funding, they either have to reduce the ration that they are providing and try and spread it out for longer,” said Mr Ging.

However, he feared that such a move would have great nutritional impact on the refugees.

“…..giving people less, which affects their human condition in terms of nutritional status of children and adults as well or there is a break in the pipeline and people basically are left for a period without food assistance.”

Mr. Ging said humanitarian agencies must prepare for the worst in South Sudan and the neighboring countries due to the looming famine.