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The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that there is a risk of famine and widespread food insecurity in four countries mired in armed conflict: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan, and that millions of lives are in danger.
In a note to members of the Security Council accessed by the AP, the UN chief said those four places suffer “among the world’s greatest food crises,” according to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises and recent analysis on the topic. However, he noted, funds to help are very scarce.
“You have to act now,” Guterres said. “After years of armed conflict and related violence, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan once again face the specter of increased food insecurity and possibly famine.”
Key indicators “similarly worsen” in a number of conflict-affected countries, including Somalia, Burkina Faso, and Afghanistan.
“The situation varies from country to country, but civilians are being killed, injured and displaced; Livelihoods are destroyed, and availability and access to food is disrupted amid increasing fragility, “Guterres said.” At the same time, humanitarian operations are being attacked, delayed or prevented from providing assistance that save lives. “
Food insecurity in conflict-affected countries “is now exacerbated by natural disasters, economic setbacks and public health crises, all posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
United Nations humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said in an interview with the AP that the economic consequences of the pandemic, such as quarantines, border closures and restrictions on movement, have had “a great effect on food security and agricultural productivity.”
And the extremists, he noted, have seized the opportunity “to get a slice of all this.”
“Everyone is very concerned about the virus and COVID,” Lowcock said. But “it is not the virus that is creating most of the carnage. It’s other things, and we have to focus on the things that really cause the greatest loss of life. “
Many of those things are consequences of the pandemic, he explained: economic downturn, reduced availability of basic public services and “the insecurity that extremist groups are dealing with.”
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