JUBA, 08 Dec. - (ANA) - South Sudan government has said it requires $1.5 billion for a post-conflict recovery plan for 2019.

 

Humanitarian Affairs minister Hussein Mar Nyout told media in Juba that the return of peace and stability in the war-torn state could see heavy influx of the nearly 3 million South Sudan refugees back home.

 

He said the money would cater for the needs of the returnees and the suffering populations in rural areas.

 

 

 

 

“With present peace, in a few months to come, we will see an influx of our people back home, whether from the region or from elsewhere. These people will require a lot of support,” he said.

 

“We need is $1.5 billion and I am appealing to the donors, to the UN agencies to help us,” he added.

 

The minister further urged the donor community to increase funding to the national NGOs to meet the humanitarian needs of South Sudanese.

 

The South Sudanese cabinet last Friday endorsed a humanitarian response plan for 2019 in a bid to stem the growing crisis.

 

 

 

 

The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs in Juba last week announced a fresh $70.5 million fund bidding to address the South Sudan humanitarian crisis.

 

South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, broke away from Sudan in 2011 after a long and bloody independence struggle, but just two years later, the new war began triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

 

The war has seen widespread rape and murder of civilians, often along ethnic lines, and uprooted roughly a third of the population.

 

President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed a much-anticipated peace deal in September, the latest attempt to end a war.

 

However, The South Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SSHF) has received $77.5 million aid to avert the growing humanitarian crises in the war-torn state, officials confirmed.

 

The UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Juba, said in an email to the media on Thursday that the funding has been disbursed since last month.

 

OCHA explained that the funding would target health, nutrition, water and sanitation, food security and livelihoods, education, emergency shelter and non-food items for the displaced persons

 

 

 

 

“To date, SSHF has allocated $51.4 million to support priority humanitarian activities in alignment with the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP),” it said.

 

The donors include the Netherlands, the UK, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Luxembourg, and Germany.

 

OCHA said 39.6 percent of the allocations went to national NGOs as the traditional implementing partners, while 39.2 and 21.2 percent went to the international ones and UN agencies respectively.

 

The priority regions, OCHA said further, were Jonglei with 33 percent, Unity State with 20 percent, Upper Nile 17 percent and Eastern Equatoria 8 percent.

 

 

 

 

The locations, OCHA went on, reflected the severity of the humanitarian needs, where people faced the highest risk of destitution due to the actual or imminent absence of basic services.

 

UN ranked South Sudan crises as the worst in the continent after the Rwanda 1994 genocide.

 

South Sudan has about 2.7 million internally displaced persons and 3 million refugees in the neighbouring countries.

 

The humanitarian crises has been caused by the war that erupted in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Dr Riek Machar, fell out. - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/08 December 2018 - - -