Dwindling humanitarian supplies in South Sudan put 60,000 malnourished children at risk

Along the White Nile River in South Sudan, children are desperately hanging on to dwindling humanitarian supplies. 

More than 60,000 malnourished children in Upper Nile State now risk plunging into deeper malnutrition, the United Nations World Food Programme and UNICEF warned last Thursday. 

The White Nile River is the main humanitarian supply corridor into Upper Nile but intensified fighting means no food aid has reached the area in almost a month. 

WFP and UNICEF expect to exhaust their nutrition supplies by the end of May without urgent action. 

“Children are already the first to suffer during emergencies, if we can’t get nutrition supplies through, we are likely to see escalating malnutrition in areas already at breaking point", said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP Representative in South Sudan.

In the past weeks, boats carrying thousands of metric tonnes of food and nutrition supplies have been forced to turn away due to security concerns. 

“We have reluctantly taken the unprecedented step of holding back supplies for fear that they will not reach the children that so desperately need them, due to the ongoing fighting, looting and disruption of the river route", said Obia Achieng, UNICEF Representative ad interim in South Sudan.

The two UN agencies have called for safe access to deliver treatment supplies.

Upper Nile state has some of the highest malnutrition rates in South Sudan, with over 300,000 children affected by moderate or severe malnutrition in the past year. The area also has to handle an outbreak of cholera. 

Since February 2025, a surge of violence in the region has increased the number of displaced families and heightened food insecurity. 

The escalation comes amid growing tensions between South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his political rival First Vice President Riek Machar, jeopardising the fragile 2018 peace agreement that put an end to the country's civil war.