ROME (AP) – The United Nations said Wednesday that the number of people not eating enough each day has reached its highest peak last year and is expected to reach new “horrible” levels during the war in Ukraine. has hit the global diet.
By 2021, nearly 193 million people in 53 countries are experiencing food insecurity due to what the United Nations calls a “triple toxic combination” of conflict, severe weather and the economic consequences of a corovirus pandemic.
The United Nations says the total number of people without adequate food rose daily by 40 million last year, confirming a “disturbing trend” of annual growth over several years.
The figures appeared in the Global Report on the Food CrisisWhich was jointly produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Food Program and the European Union.
Countries that have gone through prolonged conflict, including Afghanistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, have the largest populations without food insecurity.
The report predicts that Somalia will face one of the worst food crises in the world in 2022 due to prolonged drought, rising food prices and ongoing violence. According to the UN, various factors could lead 6 million Somalis to a serious food crisis.
“Now, if nothing is done to support rural communities, the extent of the devastation will be enormous in terms of famine and loss of livelihoods,” the UN said. “Immediate humanitarian action on a mass scale is needed to prevent this from happening.”
The war in Ukraine poses additional risks to Somalia and many other countries in Africa, which rely on Ukraine and Russia for supplies of grain, fertilizer and other food.
WFP chief economist Arif Hussein said the UN Food Agency predicted that another 47 million people would be exposed to food insecurity “in a crisis or worse” because of the war in Ukraine. of rising food and fuel prices and inflation.
Even before the war, people faced the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and falling incomes, while food prices were at their highest 10 years and fuel prices rose for seven years. , he told reporters at the United Nations headquarters in New York. York at the launch of the virtual press conference.
“This crisis is potentially more burning than a fire that is burning and burning,” Hussein said.
The United Nations has previously said the war is helping prices for commodities such as grains and vegetable oil reach record highs, threatening millions of people with hunger and malnutrition.
“When we look at the outcome of the war in Ukraine, there is real concern about how it will exacerbate the acute food demand in these countries in the food crisis,” said Raine Paulsen, director. Emergency and Durability Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
At a virtual UN briefing he said that the percentage of the population analyzed in the report, which was exposed to severe food insecurity, had risen from 11% in 2016 to slightly 22% in 2021.
At the same time, Paulsen said funding to help them has been reduced, which is a cause for great concern. In 2021, $ 8.1 billion will be available for emergency work, down 25% from 2017, he said.
The report called for more investment in agriculture and called for $ 1.5 billion to help farmers in areas at risk for the next planting season to help stabilize and increase local food production.
WFP Hussein said his message to the rich countries of the G7 and G20 was that food insecurity and hunger were “exploding” around the world and “If we can’t address these issues, we will pay a thousand times more honestly. . in a few years. “street.” He said the world has seen this happen in the wars in Syria and Europe, where Afghanistan, Central American and Haitian are trying to enter the United States.
Paulsen of the FAO said his message to donor countries was: “We must use the same energy we use together to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the fight against extreme hunger. “It’s about political will and concentration.”
Source: Huffpost
