Aid agencies call for urgent action to prevent hunger crisis in famine hotspots
People in four “famine hotspots” in Burkina Faso, northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen need help urgently to avoid sliding into famine, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
Blaming long-running conflict and a lack of humanitarian access to communities in need, climate extremes and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that 16 additional countries also face a “major (food) emergency – or series of emergencies” in the next three to six months.
At-risk nations include Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where 22 million people are acutely food insecure - the highest number ever registered for a single country - Haiti and Venezuela.
“Twenty countries have been identified and are referred to as hotspots that we are particularly concerned about,” said Claudia Ah Poe, senior food security adviser at WFP. “These countries already had significant acute food insecurity levels in 2020…and are now facing a risk of a further rapid deterioration over the next months.”
Among the 20 hotspots, Ah Poe added that “there are four where we are concerned that they may be facing an elevated risk of famine if the situation would further deteriorate over the coming months and these are Burkina Faso - in the Sahel Region - north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen”.
Some communities in these four countries “are already experiencing a critical hunger situation”, the UN agencies said in a joint statement, that underscored the risk of famine if there is “any further deterioration” in coming weeks and months.
Underscoring the level of need in the three African countries found to be among the four nations most at risk of famine, WFP spokesperson Tomson Phiri explained that in “Burkina Faso, we know that there’s an insurgency in the northern part of the country, the same with north-eastern Nigeria, the same with South Sudan; it’s a conflict that is, for decades, people have lost assets, people have lost their capability to cope with any shocks. We had …unprecedented floods this year; I mean, floodwaters were submerging whole towns, people are struggling, the harvest that was just about to come in, in South Sudan.”
Further data from March to September has also shown that while in many countries COVID-19-related restrictions were progressively lifted, allowing economic activity to resume, 27 countries affected by food crises last year now
have up to 104.6 million people facing a food crisis.
In 2019, the number of people facing similar levels of food insecurity in these 27 countries was 97.6 million, according to WFP.
“In those 27 countries, the number of people that are already facing acute food insecurity are (sic) more than 100 million already. Analysis obviously is continuously ongoing so we except this number to increase much more,” said WFP’s Claudia Ah Poe. “And earlier on this year, we… had estimated in the countries where we are operating – which is around 80 countries – an additional 121 million people would be at risk of falling into food insecurity.”
Speaking via video link from Rome, FAO senior food crises analyst Luca Russo recalled that the main objective of the alert was to avert a humanitarian catastrophe by identifying the many factors that contribute to famine, and which specific actions would help vulnerable communities most.
In 2011, famine was declared in southern Somalia in July, but most people had already died by May, he said.
“The moment you declare a famine it is already too late to act, in the sense that we saw this in the past, with Somalia when the famine was declared, already 260,000 people had died…so we want to raise an early warning before the famine occurs.”
Echoing that message, FAO’s Director of Emergencies and Resilience, Dominique Burgeon called for urgent action from the international community.
“We are deeply concerned about the combined impact of several crises which are eroding people’s ability to produce and access food, leaving them more and more at risk of the most extreme hunger,” he said. “We need access to these populations to ensure they have food and the means to produce food and improve their livelihoods to prevent a worst-case scenario.”
In a statement, WFP Director of Emergencies Margot van der Velden, cautioned that the world is at a “catastrophic turning point”, with the risk of famine in four different parts of the world at the same time. “When we declare a famine, it means many lives have already been lost. If we wait to find that out for sure, people are already dead,” she said.
Famine is defined as the most severe type of hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) measure, which humanitarians use to gauge food security levels on a scale of one to five.
A declaration of famine – IPC 5 - only refers to areas where “at least one in five households has or is most likely to have an extreme deprivation of food”, as per the IPC definition, and where “significant mortality, directly attributable to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease, is occurring or will be occurring”.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the United Nations bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva, Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights made the following comments on the recent violence in Kenya.
1
1
1
Edited News | ITC
US tariffs uncertainty hurts world economy, with poorest countries hit hardest – top UN economist
A new US decision to further delay the end of a 90-day pause on tariffs is bad for business, a top UN economist said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | WHO , OHCHR
Gaza aid site horror continues as more starving people shot trying to get food
Amid intensifying hopes for a new Gaza ceasefire, UN humanitarians confirmed disturbing details on Friday of continued killings and injuries of Palestinians desperately seeking food at aid sites.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA
A clearer picture of needs across Iran is beginning to emerge after the conflict this month with Israel, which left hundreds dead, several hospitals hit and a spike in Afghan refugees returning home, the UN’s top official in Tehran said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | WMO
The blistering early-summer heatwave that’s brought life-threatening temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere is a worrying sign of things to come, UN weather experts said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk made the following remarks to the Human Rights Council annual panel on adverse impacts of climate change.
1
1
2
Edited News | WHO
The first meagre midweek delivery of urgently needed medical goods to enter Gaza in months will provide scant relief to the enclave’s people, who continue to be shot and killed as they search for food, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
2
1
2
Statements , Edited News | HRC
Enhanced interactive dialogue on the High Commissioner’s report on Myanmar presented by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and oral update by Thomas Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
1
1
1
Edited News | UNOG
The conflict-impacted people of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) urgently need much more international assistance than they are getting today, the UN’s top aid official said on Thursday.
1
1
2
Edited News | UNOG
Violence in Myanmar is spiralling as the military junta increases its attacks on monasteries, schools and camps sheltering people uprooted by the civil war, a top independent human rights investigator warned on Wednesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan on Palestinians killed seeking food in Gaza
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Iran-Israel war: UN rights office concerned over strike on Tehran prison, reported espionage arrests
Tehran’s notorious Evin prison known for holding dissidents should not be a target, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, a day after a reported Israeli strike on the complex.