INTEGRATED NUTRITION AND HEALTH INTERVENTION SAVES CHILDREN UNDER FIVE AMIDST HUNGER THREAT IN SOUTH SUDAN.

When *Abuk took her baby to the Save the Children supported clinic in Abyei, *Akel was found to be severely malnourished. She has since received life-saving treatment and is now stable and recovering.  

 Abuk*, 38, and her daughter Akel*, 8 months. Photo: Tito Justin

Abyei, South Sudan - Conflict, floods and draught in South Sudan has exposed many families especially women and children to poverty.

*Abuk, 38, from South Sudan has nothing to feed her three children as there is no food in the area where she lives. In 2019. Abuk* 38, could not harvest her sorghum, groundnut and simsim because of the drought, and in 2020 floods also destroyed Abuk’s crops.

Abuk has lived for three years without the help of her husband who is a soldier and rarely stays with the family. Both Abuk and her husband have little income to support the family. *Abuk gathers firewood and poles so she can sell them to buy food for her children and sometimes she washes dishes at local restaurants just to make ends meet.  

Most of the time the money Abuk earns is not enough to buy food to feed her children and they go hungry sometimes the whole day without food. Abuk’s health and her youngest daughter *Akel, who is only eight months old, started to deteriorate because they don’t feed enough. They lost weight. Because *Abuk didn’t have enough to eat, her body could not generate enough breast milk to feed her daughter. 

There were no proper health facilities to treat Abuk’s daughter, Akel, where they live so Abuk has to walk for sixty kilometers (15 hours) on foot to search for a healthy facility. At the time they reached Save the Children health centre, their last meal was three days ago. “I am here because of my baby; she has been sick for long period of time”, Abuk says. “This forced me to leave my village to seek further treatment and I hope my child’s condition will improve, she explains to a Save the Children Health official.  

Abuk says, she is living with the “mercy of Good Samaritans” who continue to support her with some food items. Abuk says, she is upset because she left nothing back home and currently having nothing on her way to search for health facility in Abyei.

“I hope my child will get better medication so that I can start fresh life here, or go back to my home land”, Abuk says.  

When *Abuk took her baby to the Save the Children supported clinic in Abyei, *Akel was found to be severely malnourished. She has since received life-saving treatment and is now stable and recovering.  

Save the Children is doing community intervention looking at the long term improvement of the malnutrition rate in the Abyei. With support from ECHO, Save the Children is strengthening the capacity of the local authorities, the local community and the local government at the Ministry of Health in terms of behavior change on how people can manage their nutrition status without the intervention of humanitarian organizations.  We also have MYCN. There is also community mobilization and community awareness to ensure that at least people get the basic knowledge on how to prevent malnutrition, how to eat balanced died using the available resources in the area and where to refer in case there is complication of malnutrition.

Save the Children helps children survive in the face of some of the most adverse conditions in the world. Our focus is maternal, new-born and child survival and we provide drugs, equipment, training and other support to government health centres, deliver vaccinations, and provide care to children who are malnourished.

Written by: Tito Justin/Save the Children