Donald M. Payne: “100,000 people in South Sudan are at risk of starvation. Turmoil in the country could push another 5.5 million people…”

“100,000 people in South Sudan are at risk of starvation. Turmoil in the country could push another 5.5 million people into life-threatening hunger by summer. This hunger crisis in Sudan is manmade, the result of a civil war that has decimated the agriculture and destroyed the economy, and it will take humanitarian action to fix it. I am proud to be a cosponsor of H. Res. 187, introduced by Congresswoman Karen Bass. This resolution aids the people of South Sudan by increasing emergency assistance to address the famine, and it calls on the Government of South Sudan to allow unrestricted humanitarian access to displaced and starving populations. I urge my colleagues to pass this resolution. It is essential that the South Sudanese Government and opposition forces cease their inhumane blocking of humanitarian workers and permit the delivery of assistance to the South Sudanese. Millions of lives are at stake. As my late father, Donald Payne, the Member in this seat prior to me, fought for this Nation to exist over a decade of work here in the Congress, to now see what is going on, he was able to get the situation in Darfur labeled a genocide. I hope the next generation of Paynes does not have to do the same thing in South Sudan.”