When Mary Abdullah arrived at Bunj Hospital in the far north of South Sudan with her 13-month-old daughter, Jote, she was gripped by fear. Jote, weighing just five kilograms, was suffering from anemia and malnutrition—a fate shared by thousands of children across the country. "When I brought her here, I was thinking ... this girl will not survive," Abdullah told CBC News. Her journey, a seven-kilometre trek across Maban County, meant days without income from collecting firewood—her family’s primary means of survival.
Abdullah’s story is heartbreakingly common in South Sudan, where, according to the United Nations, a staggering 2.3 million children under five now require treatment for acute malnutrition. Of these, over 700,000 are in severe condition, as reported by the Associated Press on September 19, 2025. The country, independent since 2011, is facing a confluence of crises: deepening hunger, rampant corruption, renewed violence, and the catastrophic impact of climate change.
South Sudan holds the third-largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, but years of civil war, mismanagement, and conflict have left the government almost entirely reliant on oil exports. The route for those exports runs through neighboring Sudan, itself embroiled in war since 2023, further complicating matters. The result? More than 70 percent of South Sudan’s population—around 9 million people—depend on some form of foreign assistance, as confirmed by the UN and the African Development Bank.
But this lifeline is fraying. In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump halted the majority of American foreign aid, canceling over 80 percent of USAID programs worldwide by March and shutting the agency’s doors by July. According to the Center for Global Development, the U.S. had previously provided about 40 percent of South Sudan’s aid. The consequences have been immediate and severe: the UN refugee agency lost 30 percent of its funding in South Sudan, and organizations like Save the Children saw their budgets slashed by nearly a third.
At Bunj Hospital, the main medical facility for Maban County, the impact is visible everywhere. Deliveries of essential medicines have slowed, and the number of nurses has been halved since March. "I'm so worried because these are very important medications, and it's lifesaving," midwife Awatif Dawa told CBC. When CBC visited in late August, the hospital was in crisis: nurses, doctors, cleaners, and administrative staff were on strike, having not been paid in six months. "My children at home are very hungry," nurse Jacob Zachariah Kamis said, describing the impossible choice between caring for patients and feeding his own family. In some cases, health-care workers in cities like Juba, Bor, and Maban are supporting up to 50 family members on their salaries.
Local NGOs have been hit just as hard. Gloria Soma, executive director of the TiTi Foundation, said nearly half of South Sudan’s national aid organizations have closed since March. Her group, focused on job opportunities, education, and food security, lost $3.5 million in UNICEF-channeled funds when the U.S. withdrew support. "It takes so long and so many years of hard work to prove yourself worthy of that fund as a local actor. Then suddenly, you are told, 'It's over,'" Soma told CBC, voicing frustration and despair. The funding was meant to help with the influx of refugees from Sudan, where millions have been displaced since 2023. South Sudan now hosts more than 500,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Sudanese, alongside more than two million internally displaced people of its own.
For those on the ground, the burden is immense. In the Doro refugee camp near the Sudanese border, Aisha Ajab scrapes by cooking and washing dishes at the reception centre. Her pay no longer covers food for her family. "This year is the worst ever," she said. The African Development Bank reports that 92 percent of South Sudan’s population now lives below the poverty line—a 12 percent jump from last year.
Compounding these challenges are climate shocks and renewed violence. An especially heavy rainy season in 2025 has led to widespread flooding, with the UN expecting more than 400,000 people to be displaced by year’s end. The floods have devastated crops—"Because of the rainy season…. we cultivated, but the seeds did not germinate," Ajab explained. South Sudan is also battling its worst cholera outbreak in decades, with over 1,400 deaths recorded this year alone. Meanwhile, a resurgence of fighting in the north has cut off vital aid routes and displaced 165,000 people, pushing even more into hunger and peril.
Underlying all of this is a political system plagued by corruption and instability. On September 16, 2025, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan released a damning report accusing authorities of siphoning off billions of dollars in public funds since the country’s independence. United Nations investigators have repeatedly highlighted how entrenched corruption and poor governance have crippled South Sudan’s ability to respond to its people’s needs. The Associated Press, in its recent coverage, noted that the country’s reliance on humanitarian assistance has only deepened as a result.
Humanitarian workers and analysts are blunt about the stakes. "Our sector is reeling right now from massive cuts, and yet the needs have increased dramatically—because of the protracted crisis, climate change and the rising cost of living," said Canadian Danny Glenwright of Save the Children. Local leaders like Soma echo the sentiment, emphasizing the disconnect between decision-makers far removed from the daily suffering in South Sudan. "Whoever is making all these decisions is miles away and is not seeing the impact on the ground," she said.
The country’s overwhelming dependence on aid has, ironically, postponed the hope of building a more stable and self-sufficient society. As development consultant Jason Matus told CBC, "We were always supposed to be replaced… by a government that's accountable and responsive to its people, by a private sector that is ethical, by a society that is cohesive and empathetic and by a physical environment that is capable of managing the demands on it for people to survive." Instead, the cycle of crisis and dependency continues, exacerbated by what Glenwright calls "policy failures." "Everything costs more money to do, and we have less money than ever to do it," he said.
As South Sudan faces what the UN calls the world’s second-biggest hunger crisis, the convergence of aid cuts, climate disasters, violence, and corruption threatens to push millions further into desperation. For mothers like Mary Abdullah and children like Jote, the future hangs in the balance—caught between hope, hardship, and the world’s waning attention.