In the sun-scorched town of Maban, South Sudan, the faces of hunger are everywhere. Photographs curated by Associated Press editors capture the gaunt frames of children, the haunted eyes of mothers, and the barren fields that once promised sustenance. These images, stark and unflinching, offer more than a glimpse into a worsening crisis—they reveal a nation teetering on the edge of catastrophe as of September 2025.
But behind the images lies a story of systemic failure, corruption, and neglect. According to a damning report released on September 16, 2025, by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, South Sudan’s political elites have orchestrated a "plundering of a nation" that has unleashed a human rights disaster. The report, titled Plundering a Nation: How Rampant Corruption Unleashed a Human Rights Crisis in South Sudan, is the result of two years of independent investigations and analysis, painting a picture of government corruption so brazen and entrenched that it has become the engine of the country’s decline.
“Corruption is not incidental, it is the engine of South Sudan’s decline,” said Yasmin Sooka, chairperson of the commission and a respected South African human rights lawyer, as cited by Voice of America. She underscored how the looting of public funds is directly responsible for driving hunger, collapsing health systems, and fueling deadly conflict over the nation’s resources.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained its independence in 2011 after decades of war. Optimism ran high, but the promise of peace and prosperity quickly gave way to new forms of violence and, as the UN report details, a staggering scale of official theft. Since its founding, government oil revenues have exceeded $25.2 billion—a staggering sum for one of the world’s poorest nations. Yet, as the report lays bare, most of this wealth has vanished through off-budget schemes and politically connected contracts, leaving millions of South Sudanese bereft of basic services.
“Instead of directing national wealth toward serving the population, the country’s political leaders have systematically diverted oil and non-oil revenues, through corruption and unaccountable schemes entrenched throughout government,” said commissioner Barney Afako, as quoted in the report. The consequences are dire: the education, public health, and justice systems are in crisis. Most civil servants are underpaid or not paid at all. International donors now spend more on South Sudan’s basic services than its own government, while the country languishes at the bottom of both the UN Human Development Index and the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.
One of the most egregious examples of corruption detailed in the report is the ‘Oil for Roads’ program, which funneled an estimated $2.2 billion off-budget into political patronage networks. Benjamin Bol Mel, appointed Vice President in February 2025, is implicated in this scheme, with his companies failing to deliver most of the promised roads. Meanwhile, other schemes involving companies like Crawford Capital Ltd have siphoned off non-oil revenues, leaving little for government budgets even as illegal taxes on humanitarian organizations obstruct the delivery of critical food aid.
This corruption isn’t just a matter of missing money—it’s a matter of life and death. In a state hospital in Bor, about 200 kilometers from the capital Juba, the human toll is visible. Fourteen-month-old Adut Duor should be toddling around, but instead, his spine juts through his skin and his legs dangle lifelessly from his mother’s lap. He is half the size of a healthy child his age, unable to walk, and his mother Ayan is desperate. “If I had a blessed life and money to feed him, he would get better,” she told the Associated Press.
Adut is not alone. A recent UN-backed report projects that about 2.3 million children under five in South Sudan now require treatment for acute malnutrition, with over 700,000 in severe condition. The crisis is especially acute for the 1.1 million pregnant and lactating women who are themselves malnourished. Malnutrition cases have more than doubled in 2025, a surge driven by renewed conflict in northern counties and, crucially, by reduced humanitarian assistance.
Funding cuts have forced organizations like Save the Children to lay off 180 aid staff this spring, including 15 nutrition workers withdrawn from Bor in May. Supplies of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF)—the peanut paste that has been a lifeline for millions of children—are running dangerously low. USAID once covered half of the world’s RUTF production, but now, according to Action Against Hunger’s Country Director Clement Papy Nkubizi, “stocks are now running dangerously low.”
“Twenty-two percent of children admitted for malnutrition at Juba’s largest children’s hospital have died of hunger,” Nkubizi told the AP. “Triangulating this to the field—there are many children who are bound to die.” After the closure of 28 malnutrition centers, families now walk for hours to reach support, and more than 800 malnutrition sites nationwide have reported reduced staffing, according to UNICEF.
Violence only compounds the crisis. In the northern states, renewed clashes between the national army and militia groups have blocked humanitarian access and displaced hundreds of thousands from their farmland. In Upper Nile State, where fighting has intensified, malnutrition levels are the highest. The UN reported that in May, fighting along the White Nile River prevented supplies from reaching the area for over a month, plunging more than 60,000 already malnourished children into deeper hunger.
Even humanitarian groups are not safe. In May 2025, an aerial bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital killed seven people in Fangak, Jonglei State, forcing Action Against Hunger to abandon warehouses and cease operations there. “Our sites in these locations are now also flooded, submerged as we speak,” said Nkubizi, highlighting how around 1.6 million people are at risk of displacement from flooding, which submerges farmland and ruins harvests in this climate-vulnerable country.
Malnutrition is not just about food insecurity. “Malnutrition is not just about food insecurity—cholera outbreaks, malaria and poor sanitation compound the problem,” explained Shaun Hughes, the World Food Program’s regional emergency coordinator. Disease outbreaks and poor sanitation only amplify the suffering of families already on the brink.
Against this backdrop, the political situation remains fraught. On September 11, 2025, the government announced charges against First Vice President Riek Machar, who has been detained since March. His opposition party has fractured, with key leaders jailed or exiled, while the president’s daughter and Vice President Bol Mel’s wife have been elevated to senior government positions. The UN report sets out 54 recommendations to end impunity for corruption and prioritize basic needs in public spending, but so far, fiscal and accountability reforms remain unimplemented and impunity prevails.
As South Sudan’s hunger crisis deepens, the call for urgent action grows louder. The world’s newest nation stands as a stark warning of what happens when the promise of independence is squandered by corruption, violence, and neglect. For millions of South Sudanese, the cost is measured not just in dollars, but in lives lost and futures stolen.