UN Says 40,000 in South Sudan Face Food Shortage Catastrophe

Almost a quarter of South Sudan’s population urgently needs food aid and at least 40,000 people are on the brink of catastrophe, the United Nations said, urging rival fighters to allow humanitarian access.

The numbers are “particularly worrisome because they show an increase in hunger during the post-harvest period -– a time when the country is traditionally most food secure,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Children’s Fund and World Food Programme said Monday in a joint e-mailed statement.