ROME: Conflicts and climate disasters, particularly drought, drove the number of people facing crisis levels of hunger up by about 15 per cent last year and the situation is getting worse, a report said on Thursday.
Last year 124 million people in 51 countries faced crisis levels of hunger compared to 108 million people in 48 countries in 2016 and 80 million in 2015, according to the Food Security Information Network (FSIN).
The FSIN is a global project set up to strengthen food and nutrition security information systems that is sponsored by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute. “We are clearly seeing a trend now, from 80 million to 108 million, from 108 to 124 million, people literally marching to the brink of starvation around the world,” said David Beasley, WFP’s executive director.
“We will never address the issues of the day until we end some of these conflicts,” he added at the report’s launch.
The FSIN report said the rising numbers in 2017 were largely due to new or intensified conflicts in Myanmar, north-east Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Yemen. — Reuters
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