South Sudan's Food Lifeline Shrinks as Refugee Influx and Funding Gaps Push Millions Toward Hunger

South Sudan's humanitarian operation is approaching a breaking point, with dwindling food stocks and shrinking donor funding threatening to cut off life-saving assistance to more than one million vulnerable people by October, the World Food Programme has warned.

The warning comes as the country continues to absorb a steady flow of refugees and returnees fleeing the war in neighbouring Sudan, a conflict that began in April 2023 and has since sent more than 1.4 million people across the border into South Sudan. Each week, roughly 3,000 new arrivals cross into the country, many of them hungry, exhausted and with almost no money.

The strain on the aid system is most visible in Malakal, one of the WFP's key logistics hubs in Upper Nile state. Food stocks there have plummeted from 10,000 metric tonnes at the same point last year to fewer than 300 tonnes today, a collapse that underscores how quickly resources are being consumed while needs keep climbing.

WFP Assistant Executive Director Matthew Hollingworth travelled to Renk and Malakal in Upper Nile state and to Pigi county in Jonglei state this month to assess conditions on the ground, meeting communities already contending with conflict, displacement, hunger and climate shocks.

He said the war in Sudan has reverberated across northern South Sudan in ways that go far beyond the arrival of refugees. "The war in Sudan has been catastrophic for the north of this country," Hollingworth said, noting that the conflict has driven up prices sharply because importing goods through Sudan has become far more complicated and dangerous.

The refugee influx, he added, has landed on a country whose own capacity to support its people was already badly overstretched. In Renk, Hollingworth observed the punishing effects of drought in some areas alongside others still recovering from flooding, a climate whiplash that has destroyed crops and livelihoods.

All of this is unfolding at a moment when international donors have far less to give. "It all comes at the time when the international community has a lot less to give, and we don't have the same resources we used to have," Hollingworth said. He also pointed to obstacles inside South Sudan, calling on the government to address illegal checkpoints that prevent humanitarian teams from reaching people in need. "We need to reach vulnerable people across the country," he said.

For displaced people like Peter Maker in Pigi county, the combined pressures have made self-sufficiency nearly impossible. Maker said insecurity and the arrival of people displaced from other areas have made it difficult to farm or find work, leaving families dependent on the United Nations and aid agencies for survival.

"Although I am able-bodied and qualified to work, insecurity prevents me from travelling for opportunities or farming safely outside," he told Al Jazeera, describing a daily reality of shared resources, prayer and occasional assistance. Maker called for longer-term solutions and warned that any further reduction or blockage of aid would be devastating. He attributed much of the suffering to political leadership failures and divisions between communities.

Renk, located in Upper Nile state near the border with Sudan, has become the primary entry point for people escaping the violence. Refugees and returnees often arrive after journeys marked by checkpoints, extortion and violence, with little sense of what awaits them. The transit centres built there were never designed to handle the sheer scale of arrivals, and families now wait weeks or months for onward transport to Malakal or other parts of the country.

Zainab Musa, a mother of six who recently crossed from Sudan, described desperate conditions at the transit centre. "The humanitarian situation is hard and there is nothing to eat, just hunger," she said, explaining that she left the Jodha border area hoping to find help. Musa said she intends to travel to Bunj in Maban county to stay with her grandfather.

Fellow refugee Nura Mohammed Ahmed said hunger and inadequate nutrition were already taking a severe toll on people stranded at the transit facility.

In August, the WFP and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees jointly warned that more than 650,000 refugees and asylum seekers were at risk of losing food assistance, and that support for the most vulnerable 240,000 refugees was expected to run out in September without new funding.

Malakal itself has long hosted families uprooted by conflict and natural disaster. The former Protection of Civilians site, redesignated as an internally displaced people's settlement earlier this year, now shelters nearly 40,000 people across more than 6,000 households, many of whom have been displaced for years.

Basic services in these settlements are also under threat. The International Organization for Migration has warned that water, sanitation and hygiene services in Bentiu and Malakal are at risk because of funding shortfalls. Without drainage pumping and dyke maintenance, Malakal faces a heightened danger of flooding during the rainy season, potentially displacing thousands more.

The convergence of war, climate extremes, economic pressure and donor fatigue has created a crisis that humanitarian agencies say they cannot manage without renewed international commitment. Unless additional resources are secured, more than a million people could lose access to the food and nutrition assistance they rely on by October — a prospect that aid workers describe as catastrophic for a population already living on the edge.