United Nations: More than 113 million people across 53 countries experienced acute hunger last year, with conflict, climate-related disasters and economic turbulence mainly driving the food insecurity crisis, according to a new joint UN and European Union (EU) report.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and EU ‘Global Report on Food Crises 2019′, shows that the number going chronically-hungry has remained well over 100 million over the past three years, with the number of countries affected, rising.
The report said that more than 113 million people across 53 countries experienced acute hunger requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance.
The worst food crises in 2018 were, in order of severity, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria, the Sudan, South Sudan and northern Nigeria.
These eight countries accounted for two thirds of the total number of people facing acute food insecurity – amounting to nearly 72 million people.
It said that although there were 11 million fewer people believed to be in food crisis in 2018 compared with 2017, in 17 countries, acute hunger either remained the same or increased.
Living in “stressed conditions”, these people are at the cusp of acute hunger and they risked slipping into crisis or worse if faced with a shock or stressor, it said. (PTI)
