Food insecurity and famine in South Sudan

Food insecurity has been a persistent and recurrent crisis in South Sudan since independence in 2011. Early conditions fluctuated between stressed and crisis levels, with localized emergencies along the Sudan border. Although good rainfall and harvests in 2012 brought temporary improvements, the civil war that began in December 2013 severely disrupted agriculture, displaced millions, and sharply worsened food security. By 2014 and 2015, about one third of the population faced crisis or emergency levels.

Conditions deteriorated further in 2016 amid conflict, economic collapse, high food prices, and restricted humanitarian access. In February 2017, famine was declared in parts of Unity and Northern Bahr el Ghazal States. Around 4.9 million people required urgent assistance, and more than one million children were acutely malnourished. Although expanded humanitarian operations helped contain the famine by mid 2017, severe food insecurity persisted.

From 2018 onward, between 5 million and 6 million people were regularly classified in crisis or emergency phases, driven by ongoing insecurity, displacement, economic decline, erratic rainfall, flooding, and pest outbreaks. After the civil war, food insecurity remained extremely high, affecting over half the population in some years. Despite periods of modest improvement, renewed conflict, climate shocks, economic deterioration, and the arrival of returnees and refugees from Sudan led to further deterioration in 2024 and 2025, with around 6 million people still facing acute food insecurity.