South Sudan’s aid crisis deepens as food stocks run low

Renk, South Sudan – The arrivals begin before dawn. Women carry children and plastic bags; men walk with almost nothing. Every week, about 3,000 refugees and returnees cross into South Sudan from Sudan.Many arrive hungry, exhausted and with little or no money. But the food assistance they depend on is also running out.More than one million vulnerable people could lose access to life-saving food and nutrition assistance by October unless additional resources are secured, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).In Malakal, one of the agency’s key logistics hubs in the Upper Nile state, food stocks have fallen from 10,000 metric tonnes at this time last year to less than 300 tonnes now. The drop comes as humanitarian agencies face shrinking resources while needs continue to rise, WFP says.WFP assistant executive director Matthew Hollingworth visited Renk and Malakal in Upper Nile and Pigi county in Jonglei state this month, where he witnessed firsthand the pressures facing communities already struggling with conflict, displacement, hunger and climate shocks.Hollingworth told Al Jazeera that the war in Sudan had driven up prices and put additional pressure on a country already stre...