JUBA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Humanitarian response efforts to the hunger-stricken population in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) in South Sudan are being hampered by heavy flooding that has cut off roads, a South Sudanese official said on Friday.
Oleyo Akuer, minister of information and communication in the GPAA, said that 90 percent of the 365,342 estimated population across the six counties in the area, Pibor, Gumuruk, Lekuangole, Vertet, Jebel Boma, and Pochalla, depend on humanitarian food assistance.
"Right now, people are not happy because there is no access to food in various places, including Pibor headquarters, and even in remote places like Jebel Boma and Pochalla," Akuer told Xinhua in an interview.
Some 30 people reportedly died of starvation in the last two months.
He said that the poor road network between Juba and the Pibor area has complicated the ongoing efforts by humanitarian agencies to reach out to the affected population.
Akuer said "When the rainy season started, roads were cut off and the main markets in Greater Pibor ran out of food stocks; the situation was bad, and there was no incoming food assistance."
Oxfam International, a global charity, announced Monday that about 12 people died of starvation early this month in the Pibor area.
Manenji Mangundu, Oxfam country director in South Sudan, said in a statement earlier this week that the situation in the area is heartbreaking, adding that thousands of people are in starvation.
Mangundu said that many children are severely malnourished because they have nothing to eat for days, and that civilians have been forced to rely on wild vegetables and desert dates.
According to Mangundu, more than 7 million people are already facing extreme hunger in South Sudan, including nearly 79,000 people facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, which is more than double that of last year.
