United Nations, Ramadan 5, 1435, Jul 2, 2014, SPA -- Ethiopia faces a huge wave of refugees from South Sudan, where famine threatens to create further misery on a people already suffering from violent conflict, the U.N. food agency warned Wednesday. "The numbers are increasing exponentially in a very short period of time," World Food Program (WFP) Ethiopia director Abdou Dieng said in Geneva. More than 158,0000 South Sudanese refugees already has crossed the border to reach camps in neighboring Ethiopia, according to U.N. figures released Wednesday. At least 1,500 more arrive each week, and the United Nations predicts South Sudanese refugee numbers could double to 300,000 by the end of the year. "The situation is not improving in South Sudan, so we expect that [refugees] will continue to come. If there is a famine in South Sudan, as many people think there will be, that will push more people to come into Ethiopia," Dieng told reporters. --SPA 21:32 LOCAL TIME 18:32 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w