Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply reports on the growing hunger crisis in South Sudan, which has physically stunted the growth of the nation's children, and how violence has exacerbated the issue.

• Aid and humanitarian groups can help, but the call here is for an international coalition to help stop the conflict tearing the nation apart and starving its citizens.

• Here's another article on the importance of lasting peace for the future of the South Sudanese people.

Lorenjo Loburi grips a white container as red beans slosh in. The 13-year-old South Sudanese boy is at Imvepi Collection Center in northern Uganda. He balances the beans and a wide plate of ugali, an East African staple that is a starch paste made from maize flour. On the floor of a tent, he and his five siblings scramble to eat from the single dish they brought with them when they fled attacks on their village near Yei, in southern South Sudan, a month earlier.

This may be the only meal Lorenjo will eat today. It’s low on nutrition, but it’s enough to survive. In the years since South Sudan’s civil conflict erupted in December 2013, millions of people have struggled to get enough food. The fighting stemmed from a political dispute between the president and his former deputy, though the conflict has since splintered, involving multiple opposition groups and covering much of the country.

Lorenjo’s oldest sister, Agnes Akello, is just 17. She led her five younger siblings by foot into Uganda, with just one dish and whatever they were wearing. Their mother ran a different direction when they heard gunshots in their village. They haven’t heard from their father, who is in the military, for a long time.

“I don’t know how I will feed my younger ones,” Agnes said. “This is an experience I have never gone through.”

Read the full article about war and famine in South Sudan by Carolyn Thompson at News Deeply.