UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 22 -- The humanitarian situation remains very serious in South Sudan and it is anticipated that 7.5 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance next year, said a UN official on Friday.
"At the moment, we still have about 1.5 million people internally displaced in the country. And there are 2.2 million people still outside of the country as refugees and for the past 12 months, because of the ceasefire that has been holding, we were able to deliver humanitarian assistance to more than 4.4 million people during the year of 2019," Alain Noudehou, UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, said at a press conference held at the UN headquarters in New York.
Talking about the flooding that has made the humanitarian situation worse, Noudehou said that "we had flooding to the level that hasn't been seen in the last 40 years, which has really affected 900,000 people in South Sudan."
"We have been working really diligently over the past few weeks to respond to that flooding," he added.
Talking about the dire situation of children in the country, Mohamed Ag Ayoya, the United Nations Children's Fund representative in South Sudan, said that South Sudan "is one of the most dangerous places" for children.
"One out of 10 children dies before age five, which is quite extremely high," Ayoya said.
"In the context of South Sudan, 2.2 million children are out of school" due to many years of conflict, Ayoya said.