A/HRC/34/63 20. South Sudan has become the largest source of displacement in Africa. According to UNHCR, 1.5 million South Sudanese refugees live in neighbouring States, half of them having fled in 2016. The bulk of recent refugees have made their way to Uganda (52,600 in January alone), while others have fled to the Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Kenya. Some 87 per cent of South Sudanese refugees in the region are women and children. As many as 36,000 South Sudanese refugee children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents, while the majority of them are not enrolled in school, creating another “lost generation”. Inside South Sudan, nearly 2 million people are internally displaced, including 223,994 people living in UNMISS protection of civilian sites who are desperate to return home and support themselves. 21. Diseases, protracted instability, the escalation of the conflict and widespread destruction have combined to generate unprecedented levels of hunger. On 20 February 2017, the United Nations officially declared, on the basis of its latest food security analysis, a state of famine in two counties in Unity State, and that two other counties were also at risk. United Nations agencies reported that food insecurity had deteriorated to unprecedented levels in these areas owing to protracted violence arising from the ongoing conflict, displacement, and the lack of access for humanitarian actors to deliver aid. A joint United Nations humanitarian food security assessment conducted in January 2017 found that more than 4.9 million people (approximately 42 per cent of the population) were severely food insecure; this number was expected to rise to 5.5 million (47 per cent of the population) from February to April 2017.1 In Greater Unity State, the famine has been largely caused by insecurity and the conflict, which has prevented farmers from harvesting their crops.2 Food insecurity is expected to reach massive proportions in 2017. The price of staples has already reached record levels; in some areas, four times the price of a year ago. Population growth and infant mortality remain a challenge in South Sudan; the country is also currently experiencing a cholera outbreak for the third consecutive year. 22. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 7 million people are now in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and protection.3 South Sudan is one of the most logistically challenged countries in the world in which to deliver aid owing to the lack of roads or viable airfields, and a rainy season that can last up to eight months. In addition, the Government has imposed restrictions on movement of aid, including preventing aid delivery to civilians in opposition-controlled territories. On 31 December 2016, the National Security Service issued a directive to eight humanitarian organizations to stop their operations, including the dispatch of aid convoys by road and boat to Panyiyar, Nyong and Ganyliel, in effect preventing assistance to civilians living in those opposition-controlled territories. 23. Since December 2013, at least 67 aid workers, most of them South Sudanese, have reportedly been killed. Non-governmental organizations account for the delivery of around 70 per cent of all humanitarian assistance in South Sudan, providing a vital service for millions. Their staff members, however, remain extremely vulnerable, without the same protection as employees of the United Nations. Overall, 831 humanitarian access incidents were reported from January to November 2016; they included assaults, ambushes and 1 2 3 6 Reliefweb, IPC, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification: the Republic of South Sudan, Key IPC Findings: January-July 2017. IPC in South Sudan, “Localized famine and unprecedented levels of acute malnutrition in Greater Unity”, IPC Alert, issue 6, 20 February 2017. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017: South Sudan, December 2016.