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Now, let me ask you a question: would you rather be one of nine thousand or one of seven million? Would you rather be in Ethiopia or Sudan?

Funding has been slow for Sudan this year due to the 'relatively small numbers of people at risk', and in terms of donors' interest their focus has turned to other crises. In March five aid agencies pulled out because they were not prepared to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (the de facto civil administration in large parts of rebel-held south Sudan).

Along with the loss of committed staff and essential services and supplies, the war-ravaged people of south Sudan will be even bigger losers because of the conflict over this memorandum as 45% of funding for south Sudan has been cut by ECHO (a European Union funding agency).

Still, there will not be a nation-wide famine this year in Sudan. But localized famine will be there, in battered Bahr-el-Ghazal and Upper and Blue Nile, even in parts of Eastern Equatoria.

I can't give any meaningful figures. This is not lack of research; the truth is, no-one really knows because no-one goes to many of these places - not even the UN or its World Food Programme. People die hideous, premature deaths and often we don't even know they have been born.

I asked the Programme Coordinator of the ACT supported Church Consortium (ACT-CC) why the donors seem to have given up on Sudan when there is still such great need.

"The donors follow the media for 'big impact'", he said wearily, "and the situation of too little funding being made available is exacerbated by the refusal of some governments to fund capacity building. But they need to channel resources into finding a solution for the conflict."

Last year the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) began a valuable initiative called the People to People Peace Process. Undeterred by insecurity, death threats, tenuous funding and lack of administrative resources NSCC's General Secretary Dr Haruun Ruun and a dedicated team achieved something little short of miraculous: peace between warring Dinka and Nuer tribes (two of the largest in south Sudan who share a long border between their lands).

Since then, many Nuer in Western Upper Nile have been chased from their homes near the lucrative, government-secured oilfields around Bentiu. This peace agreement meant they could do something they hadn't been able to do in a long time - flee to the Dinka lands. The Dinka have accepted them and shared everything they have, but this has put a huge strain on their limited resources and some fear that these pressures will lead to an unravelling of the peace agreements. There are few agencies now to pick up the slack and the last food distribution in the area was 5 February.

In Lokichoggio, northern Kenya, waiting for a plane into Sudan, I met a group of Sudanese theologians whose warmth and jollity hid a quiet desperation about a situation in Sudan that they had witnessed and reported.

They laughed and gently reprimanded me for carrying a thermos flask in their compound: "It is an insult to your hosts to bring your own refreshment".

Then, they told me what was really on their minds:

In the northern Upper Nile area of Payuar and Gumku nine thousand people arrived on 28 March from the areas of Atar and Cjubi. They are Dinka cultivators, the war, localised conflict and raids by northern militias having finished their cattle long ago. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), who had maintained a presence locally, suffered sudden military defeat and withdrew. The villages flooded with Sudanese government troops and civilians were caught and massacred, or taken as slaves.

They fled as National Islamic Front and militias burnt their crops and houses, bringing little with them. They are now stripping the leaves off the trees under which they live and boil poisonous waterlily in order to eat. "The leaves will finish" , says Francis Ayul Yuar, bleakly.

Francis is a Field Coordinator with NSCC. Based on his reports, NSCC staff recommended to other agencies and to WFP that assessments should be made in the area.

"There has been no aid agency there, ever", said Rev John Aben Deng, a member of NSCC's Executive Committee. "So far, nobody has even been into the area to look".

This latest incident puts extra pressure on part of an area that is already deemed as being "in dire need". The Sudan Interior Church (SIC) have been reporting since January that people in individual villages, particularly Alam and Atar, are suffering from lack of food due to destruction of their sorghum and maize plants by floods last year. The SIC puts the total population at risk in the thirteen counties of Upper Nile at over seventy thousand.

Dr Haruun Ruun wrote to WFP/UN in Nairobi to inform them that church leaders in Upper Nile have notified him and his colleagues at NSCC of a humanitarian crisis looming, particularly the counties of in Sobat, Renk and Khorfullus. "The general populace is in dire need of assistance due to persistent hunger, malnutrition, high prevalence of diseases such as kalazar, malaria, dysentry, TB etc.", he told them. Dr Haruun asked for a WFP/UN assessment. This is "under discussion".

Are people dying, I ask Francis Ayul Yuar. "Yes, but no-one is documenting it. If you ask a Dinka why his family member died, he will tell you, 'he was sick' or 'she was injured'. He will never admit that his loved one has died of starvation. It is a shame. A stigma."

Reported by ACT Press Officer Jane Connolly.