According to UN experts, people in many areas around the planet are at risk of extreme starvation in the coming months. Experts consider Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Yemen to be the riskiest.
Famine Across Continents
All indications are that many parts of the world will be hit in the coming months by a wave of starvation, which will exacerbate today’s food availability problems. Experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) draw these conclusions in a recent report on “global hotspots”.
According to this forecast, over the next three months, catastrophic food problems are expected to affect the population, especially in the Tiger region of northern Ethiopia, southern Madagascar, Yemen, southern Sudan, and northern Nigeria.
Experts are worried about the famine in Ethiopia the most, where the number of hungry people should exceed 400,000, the highest number since the catastrophic starvation in Somalia in 2011.
Hunger Kills
The situation is also escalating in southern Madagascar. The area is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years and is plagued by pest problems and rising food prices. According to the FAO and WFP, around 14,000 people are likely to experience “catastrophic acute food insecurity” associated with hunger and death as early as September. At the end of 2021, up to about 28,000 people could be affected by catastrophic starvation.
In nine other countries, according to an FAO and WFP report, there are high numbers of people facing “critical food insecurity” associated with worsening causes of hunger. These include Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Haiti, Honduras, Sudan, and Syria.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-07-hunger-global-hotspots.html, featured image: flickr.com/photos/fmsc/34771515090
