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The world is on the brink of a possible “hunger pandemic”.
This was warned by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), as multiple governments around the world battle the covid-19 pandemic.
At the end of 2019, 135 million people lived with “extreme” levels of hunger, pero because of quarantines by covid-19that number is likely to rise to 265 millionWFP Executive Director David Beasley said Tuesday.
“Before coronavirus became a problem, he said 2020 would face the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II for various reasons,” said Beasley. “Now with covid-19, I want to emphasize that we are facing not only a pandemic, but also a global humanitarian catastrophe.”
In a video conference with the UN Security Council, Beasley warned that “pwe would hate to face multiple famines of biblical proportions in a few months “.
Beasley cautioned that the world must “act wisely and quickly.”
The WFP received $ 8.3 billion in 2019 and now needs between $ 10 billion and $ 12 billion to maintain its operations this year.
Which countries are most at risk of famine than Beasley warns of?
Yemen
Even before the war in Yemen began, the country was the poorest in the Arab world.
But since a coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in the conflict against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in 2015, the country’s humanitarian situation has further deteriorated.
“In 2016, we were helping maybe about three or four million people in yemen. Today isThe number amounts to 12 millions”, the WFP chief economist and director of the Research, Evaluation and Monitoring Division, Arif Husain, told the BBC.
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
After more than a quarter century of armed conflict in various parts of the country, the DRC is home to the second-largest famine crisis in the world, according to the WFP.
More than 15% of the country’s population suffers of “severe food insecurity“This means that they are among the 30 million people in war zones around the world who depend almost entirely on the aid they receive.
Nearly $ 2 billion is needed to secure food supplies for these populations for just the next three months, Husain said.
“Those people were the hardest hit and are now in even bigger trouble.”
Venezuela
According to a report published in late February by the WFP, almost a third of the Venezuelan population (32.3%) is food insecure and needs help.
According to the study, 2.3 million Venezuelans (7.9% of the population) are in a situation of severe food insecurity.
In other words, they suffer “extreme deficiencies in food consumption, or extreme loss of livelihoods that could lead to deficiencies in food consumption or worse.”
The country has lost more than 50% of its GDP since Nicolás Maduro became president, a contraction in the economy that has had consequences on the food of Venezuelans.
The crisis has been accompanied by hyperinflation, a constant and accelerated rise in prices, which has led to 59% of households do not have enough income to buy food.
The difficulties are aggravated amid the pandemic by a mass exodus of health workers, according to the UN body.
And the problems do not end there: around 4.8 million people (or 15% of the population) have left Venezuela in recent years, and hundreds of thousands of these migrants face food insecurity in neighboring countries.
South Sudan
The youngest country in the world became independent from its northern neighbor, Sudan, in 2011.
The move was intended to mark the end of a long civil war, but the country fell into violent conflict just two years later.
The WFP warns that hunger and malnutrition in South Sudan they are at the most extreme levels since 2011. CThus 60% of the population struggles to get food on a daily basis.
To make matters worse, the plague of locusts that destroyed crops in East Africa reached South Sudan in early 2020.
And as one of the world’s most oil-dependent countries, the country is likely to be greatly affected by the drop in oil prices recorded during the pandemic.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, another country devastated by conflict, had suffered almost two decades of war when the United States invaded it in 2001.
Almost 20 years later, more than half of the population lives below the poverty line.
And the WFP estimates that more than 11 million people suffer from severe food insecurity.
…and the new 130 million
In addition to areas affected by war, environmental problems, or economic crises, many more low- and middle-income countries are likely to be affected by job loss and other economic difficulties caused by the spread of covid-19 in the next months.
The problem will be exacerbated by similar economic pressures in countries around the world, which means that remittances, or money sent by relatives abroad, will fall in these countries.
“Most importantly, there is an affordable treatment for covid-19 that is available to everyone around the world,” said Husain.
“But until we get to that point, we have to make sure we do everything is within our reach to save lives and protect livelihoods. “
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