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The twin babies lay on a woven palm leaf bed in a remote camp for displaced people in northern Yemen, with their clavicles and ribs visible. They were crying hard, writhing as if in pain, not from illness but from the hunger that gnawed at them.
Here, increasingly dire warnings from United Nations officials that a hunger crisis is growing around the world are becoming reality.
UN agencies have warned that some 250 million people in 20 countries are threatened with acute malnutrition or even famine in the coming months.
This week, the UN humanitarian office provided $ 100 million in emergency funds to seven countries most at risk of famine: Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo and Burkina Faso.
But David Beasley, director of the World Food Program, says billions in new aid are needed. Without it, “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press last week.
In several countries, the coronavirus pandemic has added a new burden on top of the impact of ongoing wars, pushing more people into poverty, unable to pay for food. At the same time, funding for international aid has fallen short, weakening a safety net that keeps people alive.
In Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, Zemaray Hakimi said she can only feed her children one meal a day, usually stale black bread dipped in tea. He lost his job as a taxi driver after contracting COVID-19 and now he waits daily on the street for the job as a day laborer that rarely comes.
When his children complain of hunger, he says, “I tell them to put up with it. Maybe one day we can do better. “
South Sudan may be closer to famine than any other country, as crisis after crisis drains a population depleted by five years of civil war. The UN projected earlier this year that a quarter of the population of Jonglei state, home to more than 1.2 million, would come to the brink of famine.
Now cut off from much of the world by floods that have affected around 1 million people, many South Sudanese have seen agriculture and other food-gathering activities destroyed. The challenges are so numerous that even “plastic sheeting is not available, as it had been used to a great extent for the pre-flood response,” the UN humanitarian agency said this week.
COVID-19 has restricted trade and travel. Food prices went up. The postwar riots are still deadly; Gunmen recently fired at WFP ships carrying supplies.
“The convergence of conflict, macroeconomic crisis, recurring floods, as well as indirect impacts from COVID create a ‘perfect storm,’” said aid group CARE’s country director Rosalind Crowther in an email. “Floods and violence have caused massive displacement, low crop production and loss of livelihoods and livestock.”
In the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is on a “countdown to catastrophe,” WFP’s Beasley warned the UN Security Council last week.
“Famine is really a real and dangerous possibility and the warning lights are … flashing red, as can be red,” he said.
For years, Yemen has been the center of the world’s worst food crisis, fueled by the destructive civil war between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who in 2014 seized the north and the capital, Sanaa, and a Saudi-led coalition that supports the government in the south.
International aid brought him off the brink of famine two years ago. But the threat has resurfaced this year, fueled by increased violence and a currency collapse that put food out of reach for growing numbers of people.
Donors have been wary of new funding due to corruption and the restrictions the Houthis have placed on humanitarian workers. The UN had to halve the rations it gives to 9 million people, and faces possible cuts to another 6 million in January.
The 18-month-old twins, Mohammed and Ali, weigh only about 3 kilograms, or 6.6 pounds, less than a third of the weight they should be, according to their doctor.
His father, Hassan al-Jamai, was a farmer in the northern province of Hajjah, near the border with Saudi Arabia. Shortly after his birth, the family had to flee the fighting to a camp for displaced persons in Abs district.
“We are struggling to treat them,” said Mariam Hassam, the twins’ grandmother. “Their father took them everywhere.”
Two-thirds of Yemen’s population, some 28 million people, suffer from hunger. In the south, recent UN survey data shows that cases of severe acute malnutrition increased 15.5% this year, and at least 98,000 children under the age of 5 could die from it.
By the end of the year, 41% of the 8 million people in the South are expected to have significant gaps in food consumption, compared to 25%.
The situation could be worse in Sanaa and the north, home to more than 20 million people. The UN is currently conducting a similar survey there.
Sanaa’s main hospital, al-Sabeen, received more than 180 cases of malnutrition and acute malnutrition in the past three months, well beyond its capabilities, according to Amin al-Eizari, a nurse.
At least five children died in the hospital during that period, and more died outside, he said.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged influential parties in Yemen to take steps to “avoid a catastrophe” or risk a tragedy with “consequences that will reverberate indefinitely in the future.”
Yemen is “now in imminent danger of suffering the worst famine the world has seen in decades,” he said.
In Afghanistan, like Yemen, paralyzed by war, the pandemic has meant further job losses and rising food prices. The poverty rate is expected to jump this year from 54% of the population of some 36 million to 72%, according to World Bank projections.
Some 700,000 Afghan workers returned from Iran and Pakistan this year, fleeing the coronavirus outbreaks. That stopped millions of dollars in remittances, a key income for families in Afghanistan, and returnees swamped the ranks of those in need of work.
The markets of Kabul seem to be full of food. But store owners say fewer customers can afford something. More people are experiencing major deficiencies in their diet; it is expected to increase to 42% of the population by the end of the year, from 25%, according to UN figures.
In the Bagrami IDP camp in the mountains surrounding Kabul, Gul Makai sat next to his adobe hut. He had spent the night cleaning up water and mud after the roof leaked from the recent snow. With the first snowfalls of this year, temperatures have dropped below freezing.
Her 12 children, all 10 and under, sat with her, hungry and shivering in the cold breeze. They were all thin. One daughter, Neamat, about 4 years old, had the withered appearance that suggests malnutrition.
Makai fled her home in southern Helmand province seven months ago after her husband was killed in a crossfire between government forces and the Taliban. Begging, he eats enough rice or stale bread to give his children one meal a day. Eat every other day.
“The weather in winter will get colder,” he said. “If I don’t get help, my children can get sick, or God forbid, I can lose one of them. We are in bad condition ”.
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