KHARTOUM, 10 October 2021, (TON): The UN’s emergency-response agency said “severe flooding since August has affected at least 623,000 people in South Sudan, forcing many to flee their homes with the situation further exacerbated by ongoing violence.”

Torrential rains have caused rivers to overflow, deluging homes and farms in eight of South Sudan’s ten states, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a briefing note.

The agency said “emergency workers are using canoes and boats to reach cut-off populations, with over two-thirds of the affected areas now facing the risk of hunger as food prices shoot up, recording a 15-percent jump since August.”

“Schools, homes, health facilities and water sources were inundated, impacting people’s access to basic services.”

Some families have been able to flee to the capital Juba, while others have set up makeshift camps along highways, grabbing what few possessions they could from the ruins of their flimsy thatched huts.

In some parts of the country, violence between rival communities has forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes while also complicating emergency workers’ efforts to help flood-battered communities.