South Sudan suffering 'man-made' famine

South Sudan on Monday declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly five million hungry in what aid groups called a "man-made" tragedy.

Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan's National Bureau of Statistics, said some parts of the northern Greater Unity region "are classified in famine, or... risk of famine".

Aid agencies said 100,000 people were affected by the famine, with a further one million people being on the brink of famine in the coming months.

"A formal famine declaration means people have already started dying of hunger. The situation is the worst hunger catastrophe since fighting erupted more than three years ago," a statement by the World Food Programme (WFP), UN children's agency UNICEF and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said.

Famine last hit the region six years ago, killing an estimated 260,000 people in Somalia.

The report on Monday said that an increase in humanitarian assistance was needed in order to prevent the famine from spreading to other vulnerable areas.

"If sustained and adequate assistance is delivered urgently, the hunger situation can be improved in the coming months and further suffering mitigated," the report said.

A combination of civil war and an economic collapse have been blamed for the situation.

South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, was engulfed by civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his rival and former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him.

An August 2015 peace deal was left in tatters when fighting broke out in Juba in July last year.

Violence, initially between ethnic Dinka supporters of Kiir and ethnic Nuer supporters of Machar, has since spread to other parts of the country, engulfing other ethnic groups and grievances. The United Nations has warned of potential genocide and ethnic cleansing and there is no prospect of peace in sight.

There have been warnings of famine in Yemen, Somalia and north-eastern Nigeria, but South Sudan is the first to declare one.