More than two million South Sudanese children have been forced to flee their homes due to the persistent war coupled up with the famine that has hit parts of the country, the United Nations said on Monday.
In a country of 12 million people, nearly three in every four children do not go to school, UNHCR and the U.N. children’s agency UNICF said. More than 1 million children have fled outside South Sudan while another 1 million are internally displaced.
The fighting in South Sudan began in December 2013 following accusations by President Salva Kiir that his then-deputy Riek Machar was plotting to overthrow his government. Machar denied the accusations but then went on to mobilize a rebel force to fight the government.
A U.N.-backed peace deal signed in 2015 has continually been violated by both factions, with the world body warning earlier this year of a possible genocide.
The U.N. has rated the world’s youngest nation as the Africa’s biggest refugee problem, and third biggest in the world after Syria and Afghanistan.
UNICEF and UNHCR said more than a thousand children have been killed in the fighting. The true figure may be much higher since there are no accurate death tolls available for South Sudan, one of the world’s least developed nations.
Many South Sudanese refugees have fled into neighbouring Uganda, Kenya, Sudan or Ethiopia, nations which are already struggling to provide enough food and resources for their own populations.
