Seventy percent of southern Sudanese children do not go to school and a newly-born state faces the risk of losing a generation, making it harder to rebuild after the conflict, a UN official said.
South Sudan, which broke away from Sudan in 2011, has experienced civil war for four years, sparked by a political rivalry between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar.
The warning by Henrietta H. Fur, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), came in an interview with Reuters on Friday after visiting some of the most devastated areas because of the war.
“Seventy percent of children are out of school, the highest in the world. There is too much violence.”
“If we do not help … we will lose this generation and this will be tragic for Southern Sudan because a country can not build itself without this next generation of young people,” she said.
She said she had visited towns in the north of the country and seen the spread of malnutrition among children. “We are heading to the dry season … we could lose up to a quarter of a million children in southern Sudan,” she warned.
Tens of thousands are estimated to have died in the conflict, which has also displaced a quarter of the total population of 12 million.
The economy, which relies almost entirely on oil exports, is in a deplorable state with production falling.
Agricultural production also fell after insecurity caused people to leave entire villages and not take care of agricultural land.
A cease-fire agreement was signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa last month, but abuses have been repeated and the parties to the conflict have been accused of violating it.
Some attacks have also targeted relief workers, making it difficult to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
The United Nations says some 28 aid workers were killed in southern Sudan last year, including nine who were shot dead in November alone.
Secretary of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia Lomorro warned NGOs not to report what they said were violations of the ceasefire.
He told reporters in Juba that some NGOs “consider reporting military matters as part of their mission, such as violations and ambushes, and mislead the international community.”
“We want to warn you very strongly,” he said, adding that monitoring of such violations should be left to international observers.
