Country: South Sudan Source: International Crisis Group Crisis Group experts Daniel Akech and Chris Newton on how the latest famine warning reveals the humanitarian toll of a political fight that risks reigniting civil war.The 12 June update by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-coordinated monitoring system, warns of famine risk along much of the Sobat River in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state within two months, with an estimated 22,000 people likely starving there already. Though starvation is concentrated in Upper Nile and southern Jonglei states, nearly 60 per cent of all South Sudanese face life-threatening food insecurity. Produced in cooperation with a government that repeatedly blocked or censored such assessments in the past, this update revises an October 2024 analysis and identifies “conflict and civil insecurity” as responsible for starvation and the risk of famine. This language, while consistent with the IPC’s technical mandate, conceals the fact that government military operations, driven by a political succession crisis, bear the brunt of responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe.As Crisis Group warned in March, South Sudan is in a state of political turmoil as President Salva Kiir reshapes his administration and dismantles the 2018 peace deal that ended the last civil war. His actions seem designed to eliminate possible rivals to Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, a protegé he has elevated rapidly as a potential successor.The potential famine stems in large part from the succession crisis. Kiir’s political manoeuvres have fuelled ethnically charged violence, with government forces targeting opposition strongholds nationwide. Operating with Ugandan support and local militias in Upper Nile state, government forces are sowing a humanitarian disaster: fighting along the Sobat has displaced thousands and hindered critical aid. In April, the government retook the town of Nasir after local forces withdrew, but failed to secure a decisive victory. Kiir’s campaign has been particularly devastating in ecologically vulnerable wetlands and floodplains, which the state has long struggled to control and where exceptionally heavy flooding since 2020 has destroyed livelihoods, leaving communities more vulnerable to military operations.This pattern of violence extends beyond the Upper Nile. The government has also declared a state of emergency in Unity and Warrap states. These states have repeatedly suffered starvation as a weapon of war over the past decade, causing at least one famine (in Unity state) and other mass starvation events (in Greater Tonj).South Sudan’s political disputes are made worse by the war in neighbouring Sudan, which has crippled its economy, pushed over one million returnees and refugees into the country and increased the flow of weapons over the border. South Sudan’s currency has collapsed, and hyperinflation is making food unaffordable, with reports of thousands of people who recently returned to the country now facing starvation. Making matters worse, international aid – the usual stopgap in such crises – has largely dried up, with South Sudan’s humanitarian appeal less than 20 per cent funded as donor fatigue sets in and competing emergencies divert resources elsewhere.But the funding gap is not the main problem. Even fully funded aid operations could not fix the worsening political conflict or dampen the violence it has brought. For the third time since independence in 2011, South Sudan could now face famine.