Nails 258 million people required emergency food aid in 2022 due to conflict, economic shocks and climate disasters, far more than 193 million of the previous year, pointed out the annual report prepared by the UNwhich also anticipated a 2023 in which the situation will continue worse.
Acute food insecurity is increasing “for the fourth year in a row”with millions of people “suffering from starvation so severe that it directly threatens their lives,” according to the Global Report on Food Crises carried out by a network of 17 entities, including the body of the UN for Food and Agriculture (FAO).
The report, which was also prepared by the European Union (EU) and the World Food Program (WFP) of the UN, is “a harsh criticism of humanity, unable to move forward to eliminate hunger, the UN’s number 2 sustainable development goal,” lamented the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres.
The UN estimates that the 22.7% of the world population suffers the worst face of hunger and said that the report shows that in 2022 it reached the worst data since the study began, seven years ago. However, for this edition of the report, the number of countries and territories analyzed was increased from 53 to 58.
The situation is especially dramatic in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Yemencountries where more than 40% of the world population lives with “acute food insecurity”the third level on a scale of five that analysts take into account, just below emergency and famine.
Experts detected catastrophic dietary levels in seven countries during some time in 2022, the report said.
Most of the cases correspond to Somaliain northeast Africa, although the report also includes dramatic scenarios in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen and Haiti -in this last country, in America, for the first time in history-, reported the news agency Europe Press.
Hunger also represents a special threat to vulnerable groups such as children, whose lives are directly in danger due to not ingesting the necessary nutrients in a key phase for their physical and intellectual development.
For the first time, the report places economic problems as the main cause of some of the food crises, largely due to price rises or cuts in supply chains derived in turn from the war in Ukraine.
Specifically, the economy is the main trigger for acute food insecurity in 27 countrieswhich results in 83.9 million people -in 2021 the figure was around 30.2 million-, while the contexts of conflict or insecurity are at the forefront in 19 countries where there are 117 million people in serious need.
The climatic factor was also key in 12 countries. The report reports 56.8 million cases of people with hunger due to climatic reasons, more than double that in 2021. The drought in the Horn of Africa, the storms in the southern part of this continent or the floods in Pakistan are listed in this category.
Source: Ambito
