WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Washington confirmed it hosted a multilateral one-day summit that focused on humanitarian and economic aid for South Sudan.
The U.S. Departments of State and Treasury, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development, hosted international delegates and members of global financial institutions for an aid conference for South Sudan.
"The South Sudanese delegation made a comprehensive presentation on their economic situation and their ongoing austerity and reform measures, and the participants agreed to work together to help South Sudan address short-term financial issues as it prepares to resume oil production," the State Department said.
South Sudan is among the poorest nations in the world. The U.N. World Food Program was forced to airdrop relief supplies over refugee areas because of a lack of infrastructure.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders said around 170,000 refugees arrived at a humanitarian camp after fleeing fighting along the border of Sudan and South Sudan.
"What we are seeing here in this camp in nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe," medical coordinator Helen Patterson told the BBC.
The country's independence was secured from Sudan last year under the terms of a 2005 peace deal, though ethnic conflict, border fighting and disputes over oil threaten the peace.
