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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to combat hunger amid the coronavirus pandemic, a recognition that sheds light on vulnerable communities in the Middle East and Africa that the UN agency seeks to help, those who starve and live in war zones that rarely receive the world’s attention.
From Yemen to South Sudan, food insecurity is a growing scourge, compounded by a combination of military conflict, environmental disaster, and the economic consequences of the pandemic. Last year alone, the Rome-based organization provided aid to nearly 100 million people in 88 countries. Here’s a look at some of those places:
YEMEN
In war-torn Yemen, described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, millions depend each month on WFP to survive. In the nearly six years of conflict between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led military coalition, the agency has faced great challenges in providing aid to Yemenis in need. Violence rages and many aid recipients live in notoriously remote regions. Rival armed groups divert food aid to front-line fighters or sell it for profit on the black market. Last year, WFP partially suspended its operations in the rebel-controlled capital over allegations that the Houthis were stealing food aid.
However, WFP’s large-scale operations are seen as indispensable in the poorest country in the Arab world, where 20 million people suffer from a hunger crisis and another 3 million face starvation due to the collateral effects of the pandemic. The agency helped prevent famine two years ago.
“Conditions in this country are such that it is impossible for a humanitarian organization to do its job well,” said Saleh al-Dobhi, an internationally recognized official with the Yemeni government’s health ministry. “However, WFP continues to do critical work, even more so during the pandemic. We can say that this award is deserved ”.
The Houthi-led Health Ministry criticized the agency on the occasion of its Nobel Prize, and spokesman Youssef al-Hadhari told The Associated Press that its aid “does not solve the root problems we suffer,” including the “siege.” of the Coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
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SOUTH SUDAN
Few places in the world are as devastated as South Sudan, where more than half the population is starving, even two years after the official end of a civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people and sent more than 2 million to flee. from the country.
Now, widespread flooding has displaced more than half a million people, further complicating the efforts of WFP and aid partners to reach the worst-hit areas with assistance as food prices rise amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And the threat of deadly violence remains a daily concern in what remains one of the world’s most dangerous countries for humanitarian workers. This same week, gunmen fired on a convoy of WFP ships carrying food aid to flood-affected communities. WFP said three crew members were injured and another was missing and probably died.
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SUDAN
In Sudan, where inflation has soared to 166 percent amid the coronavirus pandemic, 9.6 million people face life-threatening levels of food insecurity. The cash-strapped transitional government that took power after the ouster of autocrat Omar al-Bashir is fighting to stop the plummet. During the pandemic, the number of hungry children has doubled to 1.1 million.
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a former United Nations senior economist, congratulated WFP on its Nobel Prize.
“In Sudan we know first-hand the important link between food security and peace, so this award is well deserved,” he wrote on Twitter. The humanitarian agency has played a key role in pushing for peace with the rebels in the south of the country.
From the war-torn Darfur region, Ibrahim Yousef, director of the largest IDP camp, hailed the news of the WFP Nobel Prize as a bright spot at a desperate moment.
“We have had WFP for decades,” said Yousef, director of the Kalma IDP camp in South Darfur, noting that the agency’s food aid has more recently helped combat malnutrition among those who live in the camps and suffer. the consequences of closures caused by viruses. , severe floods and episodes of ethnic violence. “Without their grain, many people here would have nothing to eat. We want this award to send a message to the world that we need even more help now than before. “
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SYRIA
In Syria, rival groups, but especially government forces, have imposed months-long sieges as a weapon of war, causing severe food shortages in populated civilian areas.
The eastern suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the central city of Homs and the rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, were besieged by government forces in the course of the country’s civil war. .
During the truces, the World Food Program occasionally managed to bring limited quantities of food to besieged cities, where scores of people have died of malnutrition and hunger-related diseases.
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Associated Press journalists Cara Anna in Johannesburg and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
Image: FILE – In this Aug. 25, 2019 file photo, a displaced Yemeni receives food aid provided by the World Food Program, at a school in Sanaa, Yemen. The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, October 9, 2020 for its efforts to combat hunger amid the coronavirus pandemic, an award that sheds light on vulnerable communities in the Middle East and Africa that UN agency seeks to help those starving and living in war zones that rarely attract the world’s attention (AP Photo / Hani Mohammed)
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