Air workers offload food from a UN chopper in an unidentified location in South Sudan.

More than 6.35 million people in South Sudan do not know where their next meal will come from.This is according to three United Nations agencies.

The Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Program and UNICEF yesterday said this is happening despite the fact that there has been a slight improvement in the food security situation since June.

According to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification update, released jointly by the government and the three UN agencies, 54 percent of people in the country are still severely food insecure.

The report estimates that 10, 000 people are currently facing an extreme lack of food while about 1.7 million are in Emergency and another 4.6 million people are experiencing Crisis levels of acute food insecurity.

It says while the Greater Upper Nile region continues to be the most food insecure, followed by the Greater Bahr el Ghazal region, those in Catastrophe are in Yirol East of the former Lakes state and will need urgent humanitarian support to save their lives.

Meshack Malo is the FAO Representative in South Sudan. He says, with peace, this food situation will be reversed.

“I think one of the great things that we are going to take as a take home message here is the rise in acute malnutrition and particularly the concern over the 1.3 million children. This takes us back to the definition of food security in which we have to look at the availability, access, utilization and stability.”