The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) warned on Friday of a famine in South Sudan. "More than a million people are dependent on international food aid”, reported the STP Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius. "The number of people in need of help has quadrupled within a year. The cause of this is the increasing number of ethnic, social and armed conflicts.” While in South Sudan there were 70 cases of armed combat in the whole of 2009, in January 2010 there have already been 102 violent conflicts between ethnic groups since January 2010. 450 South Sudanese have been killed and 60,000 have had to flee.

The violence has been escalating in South Sudan since the beginning of the year 2009. More than 2,500 people have been killed in the conflicts in the course of the past year. "In seven of the ten federal states in the autonomous South Sudan the security situation is extremely precarious”, said Delius. Many farmers have not been able to plant and harvest their fields, with the result that starvation is increasing. In many regions the production of foodstuffs in 2009 has dropped by 40 percent. The situation is particularly critical in the federal states of Equatoria and Jonglei.

The ethnic conflicts are being exacerbated by the increasing poverty in the rural areas. South Sudan is suffering from enormous losses of revenue since the profits from the export of mineral oil in the region are sinking. A great deal of money is being spent by the South Sudanese government for fear of a new war with North Sudan. Nine out of ten South Sudanese live from less than one euro per day. But the misuse of power by the SPLA/SPLM ruling in South Sudan and the great dominance of the ethnic group of the Dinka in all positions of leadership in public service, police and army are arousing criticism and resistance by smaller ethnic groups.

An additional problem is caused by the large number of at least two million small-calibre weapons, which after 38 years of war and genocide are still spread out throughout the region and used arbitrarily by militia, soldiers and civilians to press their own interests. So at the beginning of March 2010 in the state of Warap 15 civilians and three soldiers of the former South Sudanese liberation movement SPLA were killed when a boy refused to give a SPLA soldier a pail of milk. Because the soldier shot him a conflict raged for several days in which 1,440 houses and four schools were destroyed. More than 8,000 fled from the violence.

"Better protection for the civilian population is urgently needed against attacks by militia and soldiers”, said Delius. However the SPLA is neither trained in the protection of the civilian population, nor is the pay adequate. There is also a lack of discipline.

Ulrich Delius will be glad to provide further information under asien@gfbv.de.