United Nations, Sha'ban 6, 1435, Jun 4, 2014, SPA -- South Sudan can only avoid famine if a ceasefire holds and people displaced by more than five months of fighting are able to return home in the next few weeks to plant crops before the rains, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday. Donors have pledged more than $600 million in May to help avert a crisis that aid agencies said could be the biggest since the 1984 Ethiopian famine, with 3.5 million people already suffering from acute or emergency-level food shortages, including a million unable to meet basic needs, according to the United Nations. South Sudan U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) head Sue Lautze said that this already meant the situation was desperate even if it did not meet the formal definition of famine. “If you were a non-technical person and going to the community, you’d say, ‘Wow, this looks to me like a famine,’” Lautze told Reuters. --SPA 11:42 LOCAL TIME 08:42 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w