An intensive famine has hit several villages in the warton South Sudan, a report released by Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) indicates.
People within the villages outside Aweil Centre County in the north of the country have been forced to eat wild foods to cope with the spiraling hunger situation.
“Eating barely edible wild foods is a coping strategy for communities trying to survive a food crisis,” said NRC’s South Sudan country director Rehana Zawar as told by Capital FM.
She added: “The bitter leaves eaten by families we spoke to are from the Lalop tree, and have limited nutritional value. When families eat these leaves and little else, malnutrition quickly follows.”
Deng Yel Piol, 48, the chief of the Amothic Village in Aweil Centre cited in the report that 40 percent of the people in Amothic are eating tree leaves while another half are eating their seed stocks for survival.
NRC further indicated that the situation was dire and wanting since the county is one of the largest farming zones and feeding on the seeds, lives nothing to plant in the next season.
With the situation, 30 percent of people suffer from malnutrition while at least two deaths per 10,000 people occur every day.
The hunger situation has forced over 60,000 people from the northern region to flee to Sudan in the first three months of 2017, according to the UN refugee agency.
The new face of hunger and starvation is as a result of the civil strife that has been experienced in the country.
So far, 1.7 million have fled the country while another 1.9 million people remain internally displaced.