The governor of South Sudan’s Torit State has declared the state as food insecure while calling for aid organizations to hastily respond to the food needs.

Tobiolo Alberio Oromo addressing the press on Wednesday evening said more than half of the state population will require food aid in the coming months before the next harvest season.

 “The state government do hereby declares Torit State is in a very critical food insecurity situation and calls upon all humanitarian agencies to respond by giving the life saving food to the needy population of the state,” he stated.

Alberio added that the situation deteriorated since the end of last year due to long dry spells leading to poor harvests and wildfires.

“The 2018 cropping season was negatively affected by long dry spell that resulted to below average production and total crop failure in some parts of Torit state,” he explained.

He stated that the situation has been exacerbated by low purchasing power by the people caused mainly by the constant devaluation of the South Sudanese Pounds to international currency.

The governor pointed out that wildfires in Torit East, Torit West and Lopa counties destroyed the crops that managed to survive the season.

Aside from failed crops, governor Alberio noted that the quality and quantity of livestock products had sharply gone down due to inadequate water points and pasture for the livestock.