JUBA, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Aid agencies provided humanitarian assistance and protection to over 5.4 million people in need in South Sudan in 2017, the UN humanitarian agency said on Tuesday.

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the 5.4 million is out of a total of 6.2 million people initially targeted under the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan.

"With the compounding effects of ongoing offensives, widespread violence and a deteriorating economic situation, seven million people -- more than one in two across the country -- will need humanitarian assistance in 2018," OCHA said in its monthly report released in Juba.

The UN said more than five million people were reached with life-saving food assistance and emergency livelihoods support, in a year when South Sudan faced the worst food crisis since the country's independence in 2011.

"In the first half of 2017, hunger and malnutrition reached unprecedented levels after famine was declared in Mayendit and Leer in February, with some 100,000 people facing starvation there and a further one million people classified as being on the brink of famine," it said.

According to OCHA, conflict and insecurity have now forcibly displaced 1 in 3 of the country's population - either within South Sudan or across borders.

The UN projects the number of refugees to cross the three million mark by the end of this year, making South Sudan Africa's largest refugee crisis since the Rwanda genocide.

OCHA said due to early warning and robust action, humanitarians stopped localized famine by June 2017.

"Yet, countrywide, 5.1 million people (48 per cent of the total population) are currently classified as severely food insecure, with 20,000 in Humanitarian Catastrophe status, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projections.

The UN humanitarian agency said malnutrition also worsened compared to the same period in 2016, with surveys showing malnutrition rates in most communities well above the World Health Organization's emergency threshold of 15 percent, and more than 30 percent of the population malnourished in several counties.

More than 1.1 million children under the age of five are forecast to be malnourished in 2018, including nearly 300,000 severely malnourished and at a heightened risk of death.