Acute hunger affected 113 million people last year, says UN

ROME: Food crises will affect tens of millions of people across the world this year, researchers warned on Tuesday, after war, extreme weather and economic woes in 2018 left more than 113 million in dire need of help. Conflict and insecurity were responsible for the desperate situation faced by 74 million people, or two-thirds of those affected, in 2018, said the the Global Network against Food Crises in its annual report. The Network’s members include the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme, and the European Union. Analysing 53 countries, it uses a five-phase scale with the third level classified as crisis, fourth as emergency and fifth as famine/catastrophe.

Luca Russo, FAO’s senior food crises analyst, warned that millions more are now at risk of reaching level three and above. “The 113 million is what we call the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the numbers further down, you have people who are not food insecure but they are on the verge,” Russo said. These people, a further 143 million, are “so fragile that it just takes a bit of a drought” for them to fall into food crisis, he said. Of countries that suffered food crises in 2018, the worst affected was Yemen, where 16 million people needed urgent food aid after four years of war, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at 13 million and Afghanistan at 10.6 million.

— Thomson Reuters Foundation