PHOTO CREDIT: Ocean State Job Lot - The food aid will then be taken by an ocean freightliner to South Sudan. With international humanitarian budgets under strain, South Sudan continues to rely on a patchwork of private, church based and NGO led efforts to provide critical services. The current delivery of Plumpy’Nut from Rhode Island stands as a temporary lifeline, offering relief for some of the country’s most vulnerable children.
(NORTH KINGSTOWN) – A private humanitarian initiative has successfully dispatched 8,550 boxes of emergency nutritional aid for children in South Sudan, as US government funding for international food programmes remains frozen.
The convoy of seven trucks, carrying 1.28 million packets of fortified Plumpy’Nut paste, departed from Rhode Island on Tuesday, bound for New York for onward shipment to South Sudan.
The operation coordinated by Edesia Nutrition and backed by private donors, aims to help combat severe malnutrition in the country, where humanitarian needs continue to grow amid conflict, climate shocks and funding shortfalls. The convoy marks the end of a three week fundraising and logistics campaign under the Children Can’t Wait initiative.
The delivery was arranged without assistance from the US federal government, whose former aid agency, USAID, once covered 85 percent of Edesia’s operations. The agency’s budget was dismantled earlier in the year, part of President Donald Trump’s cost cutting drive. Edesia’s CEO, Navyn Salem, said the decision left 185,000 boxes of the life saving nutritional paste stranded in a warehouse.
“They are aging but not at risk of expiration,” Salem explained. “We need food to be travelling to children, not sitting in warehouses.”
The peanut based supplement Plumpy’Nut, used globally to treat acute malnutrition, is credited by health workers as a “miracle food” for its ability to restore starving children to health within weeks.
Ocean State Job Lot, a Rhode Island based retailer, donated the trucks to transport the food from Edesia’s facility to the New York port. Christian NGO World Vision will oversee the ocean freight delivery and local distribution within South Sudan.
Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, along with Governors from Connecticut and New York, ordered their respective state police forces to escort the trucks through one of America’s busiest transport corridors.
McKee said: “Protecting global health and safety is everyone’s responsibility. Thank you to Ocean State Job Lot, Edesia and Provision Ministry for meeting the moment and delivering Plumpy’Nut nutrition to starving families.”
The nutritional crisis in South Sudan remains severe. Edesia estimates that 1.6 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2025. Humanitarian groups have warned of a worsening situation, especially as rainy seasons and conflict complicate food delivery.
Salem noted that her organisation is continuing operations through private fundraising while US government systems are being restructured.
“This is what we do to be creative while we wait for the US government to re-establish the processes we used to depend on,” she said.
She added that the State Department has begun setting up new mechanisms for international humanitarian aid.
“It is positive and promising,” she said, “but we need something to be created in the interim.”
US Representative Gabe Amo from Rhode Island praised the initiative, calling on President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to resume government contracts with Edesia to support American farmers and humanitarian providers.
“America can still answer the call when aid is needed,” he said, adding that he has urged the State Department to reinstate US aid programmes.
Meanwhile, 40 US Senators, including Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, have issued a joint appeal for increased humanitarian aid in Gaza and South Sudan, citing widespread hunger, mounting deaths and failure by current international efforts to meet the growing needs.
For more updates and commentary on humanitarian responses in South Sudan, contact news[at]radioyei.org
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