At Maban’s County Hospital, eight-month-old Moussa Hassan lies weak in his mother’s arms. He weighs little more than some newborns.

“I was sick when I gave birth and I couldn't breastfeed since there was no milk coming,” said his mother, Hadia Adil.

Moussa was born at just five pounds. Now hospitalized, he receives supplementary milk, but Adil says the portions are not enough.

A recent UN-backed IPC report has warned that 83,000 people are at risk of famine in South Sudan.

Another 7.7 million — two thirds of the population — are acutely malnourished.

Independent from Sudan since 2011, South Sudan struggled to stabilise security following a civil war that left more than 400,000 dead and now nine million people reliant on humanitarian assistance.

The collapse of U.S. foreign aid, renewed violence, and climate shocks have now exacerbated the hunger crisis.

Inside the hospital’s nutrition ward, staff say they are struggling.

“We have shortages of the F75 and the F100 and what we have is expired,” said Moussa’s nutritionist, Butros Khalil, referring to therapeutic milks used for treating severe malnutrition. “We don't even have blankets and we don’t have mosquito nets inside.”

Khalil and dozens of colleagues have not been paid for six months, after U.S. funding cuts forced international aid groups to reduce support. Like many nurses and doctors here, he said he arrives to work hungry.

He is responsible for twenty people in his compound, and said that hunger had reduced some to eating leaves.

The United States previously funded about half of the world’s supply of ready-to-use therapeutic food. UNICEF say if no further supplies or funds are received, stocks will begin to run out early 2026.

At a food distribution run by the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP), staff described conditions as the most desperate they have ever seen.

Rations in much of the country have been cut in half progressively over the past three years.

WFP says it has raised them to 75 percent in some areas to respond to the IPC report and famine-like conditions, but warns that is still below what is needed.

Chris Nyamandi of Save the Children said two failed harvests, widespread flooding and lack of investment in agriculture have left the country deeply reliant on aid.

“Over 9 million people have always depended on humanitarian and development aid in South Sudan,” he said.

Conflict and climate shocks have compounded the crisis.

Fighting in northern states has blocked humanitarian access and forced hundreds of thousands from their land, raising fears of a return to full-scale war despite the 2018 peace deal that brought an end to civil war.

In Upper Nile, aerial bombardments cut off food deliveries for more than a month, leaving 60,000 malnourished children without supplies.

South Sudan is also one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change.

Floods have submerged farmland and displaced 1.6 million people. Aid agencies say the pattern has worsened in recent years, deepening hunger.

Critics say the government has failed to respond.

South Sudan spends just 1.3 percent of its budget on health, far below the 15 percent recommended by the World Health Organization.

Since independence in 2011, rights groups say the country has been plagued by poor governance and entrenched corruption while investing little in addressing the humanitarian crisis.

AP Video shot by Caitlin Kelly