S.Sudan suffers worst cholera outbreak in 20 years: UNICEF

South Sudan is suffering its worst cholera outbreak since it became an independent nation in 2011, the United Nations warned on Monday, reporting almost 700 deaths in six months, including many children.

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The organisation's children’s fund UNICEF said 40,000 cholera cases were reported from the end of September to March 18, “including 694 deaths country-wide, its worst outbreak in 90 years”.

“This is the worst outbreak South Sudan as an independent country has ever faced,” UNICEF emergency specialist Verity Rushton told reporters, speaking from the capital Juba.

Half the cases were children under 15 years old, UNICEF said, with Ashton adding that “a third of the deaths that have been reported are children under the age of 14”.

Deeply impoverished despite its major oil deposits, the nation has been plagued by insecurity since declaring independence.