A United Nations agency is “deeply concerned” about the continued violence in Southern Sudan and an emergency operation is needed to aid those who evacuated in the ongoing violence.

The World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian agency delivering food to victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters, said in a released statement Wednesday that the recent instability in Jonglei State ensuing large scale displacement has “pushed the food security situation to crisis levels.”

Thousands of people, many of them women and children have been forced to seek refuge in the countryside where there is little or no access to food and clean drinking water, and the intertribal violence has led to “an unknown number of deaths” and destruction of many buildings and properties in Likuangole and Pibor, that agency said.

“Reaching out to this vulnerable group of children is an important step”, said UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Lise Grande in a statement. “But it’s only the start. An emergency operation is going to be needed in the weeks ahead to help people uprooted by the violence.”

The UN Humanitarian Air Service delivered emergency rations to Pibor to feed more than 1,000 people for two weeks on New Year’s Eve.

WFP had also started pre-positioning food in the town of Boma where there will be enough food to feed more than 40,000 people for two weeks before the New Year.

Since the New Year, the agency said that hundreds of displaced people have already arrived in Boma, with more coming each day.

The agency has boosted capacity in Boma, and plans on providing immediate assistance to 2,000 internally displaced people.

The agency said that the main challenges for volunteers working in this part of South Sudan is the lack of security and difficulty of accessibility, and it continues to assist the humanitarian community to move life-saving cargo by air to the most isolated parts of the area as well as delivering supplies by road.