60 minutes rewind a rare famine emergency has been declared in the youngest nation on earth
south sudan in east africa was brought into the world in 2011 with the help of the united states
but it's one of the world's least developed countries and now civil war has left it destitute
five million people don't know where their next meal is coming from and of them 100 000
are facing death holding off a catastrophe is the mission of the un's world food program
the wfp was an american idea created in 1961 and the u.s is still the largest donor now wfp has
launched one of its largest rescues ever but in south sudan too many people are fighting for life
josephine is seven and down to 24 pounds hunger left her at the mercy of disease
and now she's being consumed by tuberculosis this is why tb used to be called consumption
josephine's mother shooed away the 90 degrees waiting to be seen by dr moroney abraham
how long would a child be in this hospital typically a child will be staying between
two to three weeks twice so long because the body is already altered the function is altered
the anatomy is altered so it will take days very slowly to get back to the original form
solid food could kill them nutrition must be reintroduced through milk-based formulas
the twins were four and a half pounds at birth and even after days here they were still less
than half their normal weight he was critically ill severely dehydrated not able to feed and
hopefully will probably reach three kilograms in the coming to three weeks which would be six and a
half pounds or so yes the clinic in south sudan's capital is operated by an american charity the
international medical corps dr abraham was one of two doctors for up to 55 thousand people
compressed into squalid camps stalked by disease a place so much better than where they came from
we headed to the violent region josephine escaped in a nation as big as texas in one
of the world's largest swamps there is only one paved road outside the capital
in the wet season people in half of south sudan are marooned sudan was africa's largest nation
ruled from khartoum by people of arab heritage in the south african tribes have rebelled since the
1950s and millions have died in a quest for peace the bush administration started a humanitarian
and diplomatic campaign 11 billion dollars went into aid and to train a south sudanese government
and security force five years ago there was hope khartoum no longer ruled over them and beneath
them there was oil they voted almost unanimously 99 to create their own state to carve the south
sudan out of sudan and within two years it had crumbled into a full-scale war especially john
prendergast witnessed the stillbirth of a nation he was an africa specialist in the
clinton white house and now leads the enough project which works for peace on the continent
people living where we are now have really never known peace and it isn't just war
mass atrocities are committed with regularity almost become routine slave rating aerial bombing
rape is a tool of war child soldier recruitment all the worst of the worst of the war of the war
crimes in the geneva conventions are perpetrated regularly in south sudan and have been throughout
the series of wars since the independence of sudan in the 1950s in 2013 the leaders of independent
south sudan's two main ethnic groups the dhinka and the nuer went to war over oil and power
you can't find a road that's been built you can't find a sewer that's been constructed you can't
find very rarely can you find a school that's actually been as a result of government investment
the health clinics are bare money disappears stolen just stolen we found no sign of that
wealth in a village called mayo thousands of people crowded behind a white strip
compelled by the promise of food they had reached the finish line of a day-long trek
through killing fields and drowning land they've survived the war of independence they've survived
two years of civil war many of them have been displaced the the level of orphaned children is
just staggering must be one of the highest in the world here in south sudan this was an emergency
food distribution run by peter mckay for the world food program tell me about the orphans
you will meet women who will have half a dozen children of their own for example they will
have been displaced four or five times from their locations uh they will have five or six children
of other women who have died or disappeared during the conflict the husbands of all of
those women have been killed in the fighting that is a terrible legacy for this country
hope arrived at 700 feet and 190 miles an hour
33 tons of food scattered in the sky
and cratered the earth like a volley of mortars
the wfp has chartered most of the commercial cargo
planes in the world that are rigged for dropping food
as this crew turned for a second run they readied boxes of fragile
cans of cooking oil each labeled with an american flag we lashed a camera on one
mana from heaven by parachute
the world food program hired what minute could find to heave the cargo each bag 110 pounds
each man not much more it's 352 paces from the drop zone
the mud held them up and the heat beat them down but they shouted keep going
we noticed their eyes fixed on a place beyond want they had seen hunger in their children and
so anger fear and will moved a mountain what you see here is about half of one plane load and each
plane load will feed 1600 people for 30 days now that seems like a lot except the town of mayom has
50 000 people who need food so it's going to take 27 airdrops the story will continue after this
the south sudan emergency response costs one and a half million dollars a day we watched that crowd
yesterday wait all day for those air drops right and at the end of the day some of those people
left with nothing i had to personally reassure several people don't worry more food is coming
the planes will keep coming owen davies and brian langdon are from new york they lead a wfp
team that arrives weeks before the airdrop they gather every member of every family to register
for a ration card we have to have everybody show up so we know that you know the food isn't being
misdirected or misused what do you mean by that you might have a situation where if you dropped
you know 100 metric tons of food you don't know how it's being distributed it might be distributed
to their friends it might get diverted to another community entirely they might start charging for
it so really the goal is to to reduce that by putting in the hands of every individual household
the ration card is supposed to be a guarantee which prevents panic at the drop zone
but after we left mayom the fighting erupted again
the airdrops stopped and seven thousand left with little or nothing
three million south sudanese have been forced from their homes some can be reached by water
and the wfp pushed 200 tons of grain through a papyrus swamp called the sud arabic for the
barrier the destination is a refugee camp called minkaman about two years ago during the war 70
000 people were stampeded from their homes and set up the camp and then in early 2016 there was more
fighting and another thirty thousand people join them one hundred thousand people in desperate need
of food it can cost one hundred fifty dollars to deliver one bag by plane but as little as twenty
21 by boat it is more dangerous but sean hughes who showed us the wfp's operation said his budget
is falling far behind right now food assistance is is the only thing that stands between
hundreds of thousands of people and absolute catastrophe there are 4.8 million people
across this country that are very severely food insecure and in need of assistance we're reaching
on a monthly basis just over two million you're reaching half the people who are in need yes half
until the war intervenes this was the world food program warehouse filling up for the emergency
but the week after we were there a militia looted everything 20 million dollars in food and vehicles
gone several humanitarian organizations think of south sudan as too dangerous a place to work
there are certainly risks there are a lot of risk to the security of our staff i've personally lost
colleagues working for wfp while i've been working here and yet it's worth it to press on there are
millions of lives that depend on us continuing to do our work so we will take every measure that we
can to keep our staff safe but our commitment is very much with the people of south sudan
that's a commitment the 100 000 people at our destination could not live without
hoisting those same 110 pound bags like the men the women were lean from hunger but stronger
for fighting it let me ask you mother what what does this what does this food mean to you
this sustains me and keeps me healthy she said
and to the people who sent you this food you say what uh
to the people who are helping us we're in a war zone that's hard to reach we need everything food
clothes plastic sheets to cover my hut and hose for farming for josephine and the twins we met
earlier food has been enough this is josephine now 42 pounds up from 24 and the twins are up to 13
pounds each where does it go from here door number one which most people expect is that these leaders
the competing factions the kleptocrats that are running this country will keep doing what they're
doing door number two is is a less likely scenario but not impossible and that is that the leadership
here because of international pressure because of the citizenry's demands for peace will start to
make decisions that are be at least a little more in the broader public interest than just their own
pocketbooks and so that's the kind of future that i think every south sudanese wants to see
for now they just hope to see another plane each sack of food will carry three people for 30 days
but there is no guarantee that there will be another