JUBA (South Sudan), March 1: More than four million South Sudanese, a third of the African country's population, may go hungry at some point in 2013 despite a higher harvest last year, the United Nations said on Friday.

South Sudan's cereal deficit will be 371,000 tonnes, just over one-third of its total cereal requirement, despite an increase in output thanks to good rains and higher sown area, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation  and World Food Program said in a report. Commercial imports will cover some of this year's deficit, but high prices and poor infrastructure will make one million dependent on 224,000 tonnes of food aid planned by the WFP, the report said.

The lack of roads and widespread tribal and rebel violence mean four million will be at risk of not getting enough to eat, it said.

South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, is one of the world's least-developed countries after decades of civil war with Khartoum ended after a peace deal in 2005. In a country the size of France where only 4.5 per cent of the land is cultivated, farming is often hampered by tribal and rebel violence.—Reuters