Children’s needs rising with worsening floods in South Sudan

By Richard Sultan

The needs of children are rapidly rising in South Sudan were worsening floods have displaced three-quarters of a million people.

“Millions of children –in 61 most affected counties – are at risk of violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect and are in urgent need of immediate child protection services,” Save the Children South Sudan, an organisation that works with children, said in a statement on Friday.

It noted that it requires $30 million to address worsening humanitarian situation in the country as more floods are expected in the coming months as a result of more rains.

Already early seasonal rains have caused rivers to overflow resulting in flooding in large areas and settlements across Jonglei and Unity states which are the hardest hit—representing some 58 per cent of the affected people —followed by Upper Nile, Western and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states, Save the Children said.

The floods, comes on top of multiple shocks, including COVID-19, amidst a weakened health system which have impacted the health and wellbeing of millions – with more children already needing treatment for acute malnutrition in 2021, it said.

Save the Children warned that an estimated 2.8 million children are out of school in

2021, in addition to 98,500 school-aged refugee children, of which 18,000 children are out of school.

“These children need immediate child protection services from multiple risks including recruitment by armed groups, psychosocial stress, family separation, violence, abuse and exploitation in 61 most affected counties,” Rama Hansraj, the Country Director for Save the Children said.

“Save the Children aims to provide life-saving and life-sustaining support to 918,500 extremely vulnerable children and 751,500 adults by 31 December 2021,” Hansraj said.