A/HRC/40/CRP.1 Catastrophe/Famine situations.191 Further, the situation is expected to relapse during the next lean season, between March and June 2019.192 Although before the outbreak of the conflict in December 2013, there were already more than one and a half million people in South Sudan (17 percent of the population) categorized as being Phase 3 (Crisis) or above of the IPC system,193 the conflict has severely exacerbated the food crisis. The most affected areas continue to correspond with the regions the most affected by the conflict. This is evidenced by the fact that the populations facing Catastrophe (Phase 5) levels between October and December 2018 included Leer and Mayendit Counties in Unity State and Greater Baggari, Wau County in Western Bahr el Ghazal, two of the areas which have faced the highest levels of insecurity in 2018, particularly during the planting and growing seasons. 194 Up to 95 percent of South Sudan’s population depends on farming, fishing or herding to meet their food and income needs.195 As a consequence, fighting and its resulting displacement during the planting and growing seasons have had a particularly catastrophic effect on food security in South Sudan. One witness told the Commission of an SPLA commander in Leer telling women sheltering in the Temporary Protection Area following the launch of the southern Unity offensive in April 2018: “nobody should cultivate this year”.196 Even where people are able to cultivate and harvest their crops, there has been a pervasive pattern of armed forces and armed groups attacking villages, looting people’s crops and animals. One witness who was in Leer during the fighting in 2018 recalled: “After people had fled from the village, the soldiers collected food items and started loading them into their vehicles. Cows and goats were herded off on foot, while food items, grains, clothes and salt were loaded into vehicles.”197 The situation is exacerbated by the fact that soldiers are often not properly remunerated or able to support themselves, and are encouraged to loot as a means of sustaining themselves. A witness from Wadhalelo, Western Bahr el Ghazal recounted how SPLA soldiers who arrived in the village in June 2018 “were also using force to take peoples’ food items. I heard that the soldiers had not received their food supplies from Wau, so they were collecting food from the civilians using force.”198 Civilians displaced by the fighting are separated from their farms and food supplies often find themselves in precarious situations of hiding in the bush eking out survival. One witness described hiding in the swamps in southern Unity: “We spent more than one month in the water with no food. We had to eat water lilies to survive. Many children were lost.” 199 Another witness fleeing the fighting in the Wau Triangle described how they “remained hiding in the bush in Ngozili, but some of us occasionally sneaked back into Mboro and the surrounding area to gather leaves, cassava and other crops for food. […] The soldiers had also stolen the water pumps that were used to pump water from the boreholes in the town, so it was no longer possible to pump drinking water.” 200 While people living in rural environments are seeing their planting and farming disrupted by the conflict, urban populations actually face higher levels of food insecurity, in part because of rampant inflation hampering families’ already meagre purchasing power (see Economy section above (Section IV(A)(7))).201 Similarly, even those who have sought refuge in the PoC sites which receive humanitarian assistance report that there is not always enough food. One woman who had recently been displaced from the fighting in Ngoko to a protection Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, “The Republic of South Sudan, Key IPC findings: September 2018- March 2019”. Famine Early Warning System Network, “South Sudan Food Security Outlook, October 2018 to May 2019”. 193 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, “Acute Food Insecurity Situation Overview: The Republic of South Sudan: 30 July 2013 to 20 September 2013”, 29 July 2013. 194 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, “The Republic of South Sudan, Key IPC findings: September 2018- March 2019”. 195 FAO, “FAO in South Sudan: South Sudan at a Glance”, http://www.fao.org/south-sudan/fao-in-south-sudan/south-sudan-at-aglance/en/ last accessed 23 November 2018. 196 Witness 841, ERN 101623-101625, para. 8. 197 Witness 831, ERN 101817-101827, para. 27. 198 Witness 931, ERN 101799-101803, para. 8. 199 Witness 793, ERN 101499-101205, para. 6. 200 Witness 914, ERN 101788-101793, para. 8. 201 World Bank, “Impact of Conflict and Shocks on Poverty: South Sudan Poverty Assessment 2017”, June 2018. 191 192 32