The European Commission, through its Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), has announced a grant of €5 million to UNICEF, which will be used to support children in need. The donation comes at a time when aid agencies say the crisis in South Sudan is deepening.
The European Commission, through its Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), has announced a grant of €5 million to UNICEF, which will be used to support children in need. The donation comes at a time when aid agencies say the crisis in South Sudan is deepening.
“The European Commission’s generous donation to the children of South Sudan who are caught in a tangle of violence and deprivation shows true commitment,” said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF South Sudan Representative. “This funding will allow UNICEF to deliver critical support to the vulnerable children who had to flee their homes and communities, and who are living in increasingly desperate circumstances.”
UNICEF says the ECHO support will help expand its response to the dramatic nutrition crisis in the country, where it is estimated that the number of children who will suffer from severe acute malnutrition in 2014 will double from 108,000 to 235,000. Nearly one million children under the age of five are facing food insecurity.
UNICEF intends to use the donation to help reunite children who have become separated during the conflict from their families and caregivers. So far, the agency says it has registered some 5,000 separated and unaccompanied children.
In addition, the ECHO support will provide vaccines and improve access to water and sanitation as well as promote good practices that are critical to children’s health and wellbeing. Other programmes will address the psychosocial needs of the many children who are trying to cope with their displacement and violence, as well as promote peace-building and mediation.
"Children and women continue to bear the highest burden of the crisis in South Sudan. ECHO supports UNICEF to continue saving the lives of the most vulnerable, especially children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition and at risk of dying from preventable diseases. ECHO will continue working with UNICEF to avoid a lost generation in South Sudan," said Laetitia Beuscher, ECHO expert in South Sudan.
In its latest situation report, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that the South Sudan Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF) will allocate up to US$500,000 from its emergency reserve to mitigate flood effects in Bentiu Protection of Civilians sites in Unity State. The report further said that an estimated 1.29 million people have been internally displaced by the conflict, while another 442,600 had fled to neighbouring countries.
Even before the current conflict broke out in December, South Sudan had high levels of malnutrition among children under five years old.
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