4 March 2017 – Hundreds of thousands of people in South Sudan will starve unless relief workers gain access to needy populations and more funding is raised, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator today warned after meeting malnourished children who fled the raging conflict in the country.

Stephen O’Brien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, travelled to Ganyiel, Southern Unity state, considered one of the most violent areas in the fight for political control of the country.

Among the people he met was a starving boy whose grandmother carried him through waist-high swamp to get away from the fighting. His parents are apparently missing.

“1000s similar. Horrendous,&#8221 Mr. O’Brien wrote on social media, posting a number of photos of people who had fled the fighting and sexual violence.

Humanitarian partners, such as the International Red Cross, are setting up clinics directly in the swamps to reach more people, he noted. Some people with nothing to eat survived by chewing on water lilies.

&#8220Millions of people prevented from receiving aid by parties to conflict. Immoral, unlawful and unacceptable. We need access now,&#8221 Mr. O’Brien has said.

He is in South Sudan to see first-hand the critical humanitarian situation and the response which his agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), is assisting.

RELATED: Famine declared in region of South Sudan &#8211 UN

The UN declared a famine in parts of South Sudan on 20 February, increasingly blaming the lack of food and the collapsing economy on the rival forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and the SPLA in Opposition backing Riek Machar.

A formal declaration of famine means that people have already started dying of hunger.

About 100,000 people are facing starvation, and an additional one million are on the brink of a famine, according to the UN. The total number of food insecure people is expected to rise to 5.5 million at the height of the lean season in July if nothing is done to curb the severity and spread of the food crisis.

The situation is worsened for the 3.4 million Sudanese, some of whom Mr. O’Brien met today, who have been displaced and separated from their families.

Humanitarian organizations have appealed for $1.6 billion to provide life-saving assistance and protection to some 5.8 million people across South Sudan in 2017.

Mr. O’Brien came to South Sudan from Kenya and previously, from Yemen. He is next scheduled to visit Somalia.

4 March 2017 – The United Nations Security Council is today in Chad, as part of a four-country visit &#8220to shine a spotlight&#8221 on the ongoing humanitarian challenges in the Lake Chad Basin region and draw international attention to the plight of about 11 million people.

In the Chadian capital of N’Djamena, the Council met with Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacké and visited the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which includes troops from the four affected regional countries &#8211 Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, plus Benin &#8211 in the fight against Boko Haram.

&#8220The Security Council welcomed the efforts to fight Boko Haram and encouraged more regional cooperation,&#8221 according to a Tweet by the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the UN which has the Security Council’s rotating presidency for the month of March and is leading the visit.

Discussions with the Prime Minister also focused on the economic situation in Chad and the importance of women participating in the economy and politics.

Also today, the Council members met with representatives of the UN agencies, funds and programmes and non-governmental organizations working in the country.

They are working to aid the millions of people who, in addition to the security threat from Boko Haram and the fight against the terror group, also face a major food and nutrition crises. Some 2.4 million people are currently displaced in the area, according to UN figures, and more than 7.1 million are severely hungry.

In his conversations with the Council, Stephen Tool, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Coordinator in Chad, detailed the severe challenges in the countries, which include malnutrition, disease and health, sanitation. He noted, however, that &#8220you cannot deal with humanitarian issues without looking at the root causes&#8221 which include insecurity, development gaps, lack of education, poor agriculture, and so on.

‘That’s who we’re fighting for’

The Security Council delegation, led by Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of the United Kingdom, had yesterday visited Cameroon, where members met with President Paul Biya and other senior Government officials.

The Council also met with refugees and people displaced by Boko Haram and the forces tracking them.

In a blog post, Mr. Rycroft detailed meeting two young survivors of Boko Haram’s violence. The first, a boy who was 13 years old when the terrorist group stormed his village and killed his friends and family. The other boy was about 10 years when he was kidnapped, escaped, and has since 2014 lived in a camp for internally displaced persons.

&#8220They are heroic beyond measures,&#8221 Mr. Rycroft said. &#8220That’s who we’re fighting for.&#8221

Speaking earlier in the day, Mr. Rycroft outlined his vision for the visit.

&#8220First of all, we came here in order to shine a spotlight on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin.

&#8220We came to hear the individual stories of people involved, whether they are refugees or displaced people or other victims of Boko Haram.

&#8220We stand with the government and the people of Cameroon, and the wider region, in tackling the scourge of terrorism, and in encouraging them to look broadly and deeply at the root causes of the set of crises going on here.&#8221

The delegation heads to Niger later today, and is scheduled to continue on to Nigeria tomorrow.