Sudan is facing what the World Food Program has called “the humanitarian crisis of our time,” as tens of millions struggle through sieges, blockades and aid shortages that have pushed entire cities into famine.

What began as a power struggle between rival generals more than two years ago has since plunged Sudan into a brutal civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and displaced millions from their homes, with mass killings leaving bloody sand visible from space and ruined infrastructure.

The post Sudan’s bloody civil war is worsening a major humanitarian crisis first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

EXCLUSIVE: Russia’s war in Ukraine has sparked a global crisis, and experts warn that hunger poses the greatest worldwide security threat as millions face famine and starvation.

“The conflict in Ukraine isn’t just increasing hunger conditions within the country or even within the region,” Steve Taravella, senior spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), told Fox News. “The number of people who are on the brink of famine is now about 48.9 million in 43 countries.

“That is really dramatic.”

Taravella said that roughly three-quarters of a million people are facing starvation in just five nations across the globe, including Ethiopia, Yemen, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

RUSSIA WAR WILL HAVE ‘SHATTERING’ EFFECT ON FOOD SHORTAGES IN AFRICA: ‘YOU’RE GOING TO SEE GOVERNMENTS FALL’

“These aren’t people who just don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” he continued. “These are people who are really facing starvation.”

These highly vulnerable nations have been embroiled in brutal conflicts, which has not only made providing humanitarian care more difficult but has also stunted global production.

“The link between conflict and hunger is really essential for understanding what is happening in Ukraine,” Taravella said. “Bottom line: When people are fighting they’re not farming.”

ZELENSKYY TAKES JAB AT PUTIN OVER G20 SUMMIT, HOPES ‘NO OCCUPIERS’ WILL BE IN ATTENDANCE

Global drought and the coronavirus pandemic had already created serious hunger conditions for the most vulnerable nations, but Russia’s war in the grain-rich sector of the world has pushed dangerous conditions into catastrophic realities.

“Hunger is soaring to terrifying levels, and the global situation just keeps on getting worse. Conflict, the climate crisis, COVID and surging food and fuel costs have created a perfect storm — and now the Ukraine war is piling catastrophe on top of catastrophe,” David Beasley, head of the U.N. WFP, tweeted this week.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres echoed these comments last month when he told the Biden administration that global hunger levels had reached “a new high.”

“In just two years, the number of severely food insecure people has doubled, from 135 million pre-pandemic to 276 million today,” he said. “More than half a million people are living in famine conditions — an increase of more than 500% since 2016.”

But Russia’s war in Ukraine has brought a new reality to the alarming situation.

“It’s a global storm with a global impact,” Taravella explained.

In 2019, Ukraine provided a staggering 42% of the world’s sunflower oil. In addition, it also provided 16% of the world’s corn exports, 10% of all barley exports, and nearly 9% of all wheat exports also came from Ukraine.

Kyiv also contributed 40% of all wheat exports the WFP received to assist vulnerable nations worldwide before it became the target of a deadly conflict.

As much as 25 million tons of grain remain holed up in storage facilities in Ukraine as Russian naval vessels hold an export blockade over ports located along the Black Sea.

Taravella explained that not only is there an urgent need to distribute the grain to assist with food demands now, but its circulation is also needed to ensure that any current grain harvesting can be stored.

Food prices have risen worldwide, but countries with the lowest GPD index will see the greatest spikes in costs at the market.

ZELENSKYY’S GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS PREDICTION MAY BE 10 WEEKS AWAY, UN OFFICIAL SAYS: ‘SEISMIC’

“The people who now have to cough up the dramatically greater amounts of money for food are the very people who can least afford it,” the WFP official told Fox News.

This is largely due to the fact that countries in the Middle East and Africa have been highly reliant on Ukrainian exports and food assistance programs like the WFP – which is also incurring substantially greater costs.

Before the war, Lebanon received 80% of its wheat imports from Ukraine while Tunisia, Libya and Pakistan all received nearly 50% of their wheat needs from the former Soviet nation.

Iraq imported nearly 88% of its sunflower oil from Ukraine, while India and Egypt relied upon Ukraine for 76% and 54% of their sunflower oil needs, respectively.

Experts are concerned the food crisis will not only lead to a spike in global hunger but pose a major security threat worldwide.

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“One of the drivers of the conflict in what we now call the Arab Spring was the inability to get affordable food. When people are hungry, they become desperate and they turn to desperate measures,” Taravella said. “We are all very nervous that as the numbers of hungry grow around the world, political instability could grow with it.

“The last thing the world needs is more conflict. How many more countries in conflict can the world sustain?”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/russia-global-food-crisis-49-million-famine-starvation-expert

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He was speaking about Africa’s priorities, as a guest at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on Friday.

Fielding questions from the Council’s Africa Center Chair, Ambassador Rama Yade; Senior Fellow Aubrey Hruby; and Washington/UN correspondent for Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, Julian Pecquet, the Bank chief called for an increased sense of urgency amid what he described as a once-in-a-century convergence of global challenges for Africa.

According to Adesina, the continent’s most vulnerable countries had been hit hardest by conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which had upended economic and development progress in Africa. He said Africa, with the lowest GDP growth rates, had lost as many as 30 million jobs on account of the pandemic.

Speaking about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, Adesina expressed sympathy for the people of Ukraine, describing their suffering as unimaginable. He said the war’s ramifications spread far beyond Ukraine to other parts of the world, including Africa. He explained that Russia and Ukraine supply 30% of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50% globally, reaching identical levels as during the 2008 global food crisis. He added that fertilizer prices had tripled, and energy prices had increased, all fueling inflation.

Adesina warned that the tripling costs of fertilizer, rising energy prices, and rising costs of food baskets, could worsen in Africa in the coming months. He noted that 90% of Russia’s $4 billion exports to Africa in 2020 was made up of wheat; and 48% of Ukraine’s near $3 billion exports to the continent was made of wheat and 31% of maize.

Adesina cautioned that to fend off a food crisis, Africa must rapidly expand its food production. “The African Development Bank is already active in mitigating the effects of a food crisis through the African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility being considered by the Bank to provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer.

“My basic principle,” Adesina said, “is that Africa should not be begging. We must solve our own challenges ourselves without depending on others…” The Bank chief spoke about early successes through the Bank’s innovative flagship initiative, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, a program operating across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries.

Adesina said TAAT has helped to rapidly boost food production at scale on the continent, including the production of wheat, rice and other cereal crops: “We are putting our money where our mouth is. We are producing more and more of our own food. Our Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will produce 38 million metric tons of food.” He said TAAT had already delivered “heat-tolerant varieties of wheat to 1.8 million farmers in seven countries, increasing wheat production by over 1.4 million metric tons and a value of $291 million.”

According to Adesina, heat-tolerant varieties were now being planted across hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia and Sudan, with extraordinary results. In Ethiopia, where the government has put the TAAT program to work in a 200,000-hectare lowland irrigated wheat program, farmers are reporting yields of 4.5 to five times per hectare. He said TAAT’s climate-smart seeds were also thriving in Sudan, which recorded its largest wheat harvest ever – 1.1 million tons of wheat – in the 2019-2020 season.

He added that TAAT came to the rescue during the drought in southern Africa in 2018 and 2019, deploying heat-tolerant maize varieties which were cultivated by 5.2 million households on 841 thousand hectares. As a result, he said, farmers survived the drought in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, allowing maize production to expand by 631,000 metric tons to a value of $107 million.

Adesina also spoke about the urgent and timely need for a strong replenishment of the African Development Fund – the Bank Group’s concessional lending arm that supports low-income African countries. He said the Fund has connected 15.5 million people to electricity and supported 74 million people with improved agriculture; it has provided 50 million people with access to transport; built 8,700 kilometers of roads; and provided 42 million people with upgraded water and sanitation facilities.

The Bank chief said there were three lessons to be learned for Africa from the challenges Africa is facing: first, that the continent could no longer leave the health security of its people to the benevolence of others; second, that it must look at health investments differently, and make the development of a health defense system a priority—investing in quality health infrastructure as a must—and third, that economies—which were already turning around—must create fiscal space to deal with debt challenges.

Asked about the outcomes for Africa of the global climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow last November, and how he foresaw prospects for success at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2022, Adesina expressed optimism. He said it was important for developed countries to make good on their promise to provide Africa with the $100 billion a year required for climate adaptation. Adesina said: “Our challenge is adaptation because we didn’t cause the problem. In Africa, we are adapting to climate change.”

He explained that the African Development Bank, together with its partner the Global Center for Adaptation, was mobilizing 25 billion dollars to support climate adaptation in Africa.

The African Development Bank chief highlighted the importance of the technology sector as a driver for growth in Africa, and prospects for young people on the continent. Adesina described Africa’s youth as one of its greatest assets. He lauded the contributions of young entrepreneurs in the fintech, digital, creative arts and entertainment industries. He said the need by young entrepreneurs for innovative financing is why the Bank is exploring with stakeholders the establishment of specialized youth entrepreneurship investment banks to unlock potential and economic growth.

Source: https://www.busiweek.com/africa-must-prepare-for-the-inevitability-of-a-global-food-crisis/

The post Africa Must Prepare For The Inevitability Of A Global Food Crisis first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Following the sanctions that were placed on Russia by the U.S. government as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion into Ukraine, Biden is predicting that groceries across the country will be in short supply, and pricier than ever before.

“With regard to food shortage, yes we did talk about food shortages, and it’s gonna be real,” Biden said during a press conference at a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium. “The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”

Russia and Ukraine are considered the “breadbaskets of Europe” due to their expansive wheat production. The two countries combine for nearly a third of the world’s wheat and barley exports.

Since a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, prices of wheat surged 55%. Ports in Ukraine that send wheat and other food staples worldwide to be made into bread, noodles, and animal feed were shut down as millions flee or stay to fight in the war.

Ukraine also is a major supplier of corn and the global leader in sunflower oil, used in food processing. The war could reduce food supplies globally, which could create food insecurity and throw more people into poverty in places like Lebanon and Egypt, where diets are dominated by bread.

It will also affect people in the U.S. living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to afford food for their families.

“It comes at an absolutely horrible time for American consumers because we’re looking every day at inflation almost reaching 10%,” Dan Varroney, a supply chain expert, told Fox Business. “Last month’s figures were close to 8%. And that means that consumers, including those that are living paycheck to paycheck, are going to pay more for food.”

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/president-biden-warns-real-grocery-172618556.html

The post President Biden Warns ‘Real’ Grocery Shortages Are Coming first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post War In Ukraine Threatens To Cause Global food Shortage first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Mr Brown described pictures of malnourished, premature babies and desperate families as “shocking and harrowing” and said Britain must call for a conference of world leaders and raise money to help the people it promised to help.

He said a joint humanitarian effort to save starving Afghans and emaciated babies must start in “days and hours, and not weeks and months”.

In recent days, ITV News spoke to a desperate father offering to sell his daughter and a crying mother whose baby is sick with fever, and saw children dressed in the thinnest of clothes on the coldest of days.

Mr Gordon said: “What ITV News has done by showing these pictures from Afghanistan is make it impossible for the rest of the world to ignore that something must now be done to avoid a winter of starvation.”

Calling for urgent action, he said: “Britain should call a pledging conference to raise 4.5 billion to help the 22 million of Afghanistan people who are in danger of starvation.

“And we must bring the whole international community together, to get teachers paid, to get health workers paid, to get the economy in Afghanistan moving again so that people can actually go without famine.”

Gordon Brown@GordonBrown

Urgent we address Afghanistan’s unfolding nightmare and save millions of Afghan lives from starvation.

To turn our backs now in their hour of greatest need would be the final insult: a badge of shame that the free world would carry for ever.

ITV News@itvnews

‘It feels like they are being forced slowly but inevitably towards starvation’

With 3.9 million children at risk of severe malnutrition in Afghanistan, @johnrayitv meets just a few of those facing desperate poverty, hunger and misery

He continued: “And that must be part of a humanitarian effort that must start in days and hours and not in weeks and months.

“It’s an emergency. People are dying, we’ve a duty to help.”
He added: “We went into Afghanistan to help the Afghan people escape from terrorism. And we must now continue to help the Afghan people.”

–The tragedy of a nation told through the eyes of Afghanistan’s children.

–Amid scenes of starvation is opinion on aid to Taliban-led Afghanistan changing?

–Drought and freezing winter mean 98% of Afghans do not have enough to eat.

Source: https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-18/gordon-brown-afghanistan-famine-report-makes-it-impossible-for-world-to-ignore

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BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — As winter sets in, Afghan widow Kubra needs to find fuel to heat the single room where eight family members live in the central province of Bamiyan. The flour they bought months ago is running out, so food is also becoming scarce.

“We got two sacks of flour last spring which we’re still using. After that, we have to have faith that God will help us,” the 57-year-old told Reuters in a room lined with rice sacks to keep out the cold.

Their firewood was stolen when they left their home amid the chaos that engulfed Afghanistan in the summer, as Taliban insurgents swept towards Kabul on their way to seizing back control of the country.

Stories like Kubra’s are increasingly common in a country struck by severe drought and where money has run dry.

Before the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in August, the economy relied heavily on foreign aid. But with the international community wary of the Islamist militant movement and the United States imposing sanctions on some of its leaders, that support has all but disappeared.

The United Nations estimates nearly 23 million Afghans — about 55 percent of the population — are facing extreme levels of hunger, with nearly 9 million at risk of famine as winter takes hold.

Life for Afghanistan’s poor has always been hard; Kubra’s family works on farms in the spring, earning potatoes instead of money.

But it’s getting worse. Vegetables like cauliflower are out of reach, and plastic sheets protect their home from the freezing weather and snow. There is so little space in the single room that Kubra sleeps at her sister’s house at night.

“My son used to collect pieces of scrap metal but right now he has no work,” she said.

‘Nothing left’
Already vulnerable after months of severe drought and decades of war that forced many to flee homes for relatively stable regions like Bamiyan, Afghans are entering the unknown.

“We never used to have different kinds of food but in the past it was alright, we had rice and cooking oil,” said Massouma, a 26-year-old mother of four from the neighbouring province of Maidan Wardak.

“We used to cook once a day and that was good. Now it’s once a week and sometimes there isn’t even any bread to eat.”

Bamiyan is best known outside Afghanistan for imposing Buddhist sites which dominate the little market town, 20 years after the Taliban blew up the two giant statues that once looked down over the high plains.

In winter it is bitterly cold, with temperatures that can drop below freezing and biting winds.

Work slows in the cold months, but the region was already suffering since the visitors who once came for the Buddhist sites and the nearby Band-e Amir lake disappeared as the Taliban offensive reached its climax.

Taliban officials say they are aware of the problems facing the poor, which they say stem partly from the effects of more than four decades of conflict and mismanagement under the previous government.

They have also repeatedly called on Washington to unblock around $9 billion in central bank assets.

“We intend to ease these problems,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “We know what the people are facing.”

Cash for rights
The crisis Afghanistan faces this winter is of a magnitude not seen for at least 20 years, when the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed forces and replaced by governments in Kabul who relied heavily on foreign support — both financial and military.

With the former insurgents back in power the financial system is all but closed, prompting a collapse in the local afghani currency.

The international community is looking to restore aid by pressing the Taliban to become more inclusive and ensure basic human rights including lifting restrictions keeping women and girls from work and school.

Like other Taliban officials, Mujahid said the new government was slowly opening schools for girls and had promised an amnesty for former government officials.

He also pointed to the recent appointment of Abdul Latif Nazari, a sometime Kabul university lecturer from the Hazara minority, as deputy economy minister as evidence the government was becoming more inclusive.

While the wrangling continues, people like Sayed Yassin Mosawi have more immediate concerns.

“In the winter, we normally borrow what we need from shops or the baker and we repay the loan after two or three months when the work starts getting better,” said the market porter, whose income drops to between 30-50 afghani ($0.30-0.50) a day during the quiet winter months.

“But there have been big changes,” he said. “Since the Taliban took over, there is no work, prices have gone up, people have left the country. We have nothing left.”

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/famine-looms-afghanistan-leaving-millions-hungry-rcna10400

The post With famine looming over Afghanistan, millions struggle for every meal first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — As winter sets in, Afghan widow Kubra needs to find fuel to heat the single room where eight family members live in the central province of Bamiyan. The flour they bought months ago is running out, so food is also becoming scarce.

“We got two sacks of flour last spring which we’re still using. After that, we have to have faith that God will help us,” the 57-year-old told Reuters in a room lined with rice sacks to keep out the cold.

Their firewood was stolen when they left their home amid the chaos that engulfed Afghanistan in the summer, as Taliban insurgents swept towards Kabul on their way to seizing back control of the country.

Stories like Kubra’s are increasingly common in a country struck by severe drought and where money has run dry.

Before the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in August, the economy relied heavily on foreign aid. But with the international community wary of the Islamist militant movement and the United States imposing sanctions on some of its leaders, that support has all but disappeared.

The United Nations estimates nearly 23 million Afghans — about 55 percent of the population — are facing extreme levels of hunger, with nearly 9 million at risk of famine as winter takes hold.

Life for Afghanistan’s poor has always been hard; Kubra’s family works on farms in the spring, earning potatoes instead of money.

But it’s getting worse. Vegetables like cauliflower are out of reach, and plastic sheets protect their home from the freezing weather and snow. There is so little space in the single room that Kubra sleeps at her sister’s house at night.

“My son used to collect pieces of scrap metal but right now he has no work,” she said.

‘Nothing left’
Already vulnerable after months of severe drought and decades of war that forced many to flee homes for relatively stable regions like Bamiyan, Afghans are entering the unknown.

“We never used to have different kinds of food but in the past it was alright, we had rice and cooking oil,” said Massouma, a 26-year-old mother of four from the neighbouring province of Maidan Wardak.

“We used to cook once a day and that was good. Now it’s once a week and sometimes there isn’t even any bread to eat.”

Bamiyan is best known outside Afghanistan for imposing Buddhist sites which dominate the little market town, 20 years after the Taliban blew up the two giant statues that once looked down over the high plains.

In winter it is bitterly cold, with temperatures that can drop below freezing and biting winds.

Work slows in the cold months, but the region was already suffering since the visitors who once came for the Buddhist sites and the nearby Band-e Amir lake disappeared as the Taliban offensive reached its climax.

Taliban officials say they are aware of the problems facing the poor, which they say stem partly from the effects of more than four decades of conflict and mismanagement under the previous government.

They have also repeatedly called on Washington to unblock around $9 billion in central bank assets.

“We intend to ease these problems,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “We know what the people are facing.”

Cash for rights
The crisis Afghanistan faces this winter is of a magnitude not seen for at least 20 years, when the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed forces and replaced by governments in Kabul who relied heavily on foreign support — both financial and military.

With the former insurgents back in power the financial system is all but closed, prompting a collapse in the local afghani currency.

The international community is looking to restore aid by pressing the Taliban to become more inclusive and ensure basic human rights including lifting restrictions keeping women and girls from work and school.

Like other Taliban officials, Mujahid said the new government was slowly opening schools for girls and had promised an amnesty for former government officials.

He also pointed to the recent appointment of Abdul Latif Nazari, a sometime Kabul university lecturer from the Hazara minority, as deputy economy minister as evidence the government was becoming more inclusive.

While the wrangling continues, people like Sayed Yassin Mosawi have more immediate concerns.

“In the winter, we normally borrow what we need from shops or the baker and we repay the loan after two or three months when the work starts getting better,” said the market porter, whose income drops to between 30-50 afghani ($0.30-0.50) a day during the quiet winter months.

“But there have been big changes,” he said. “Since the Taliban took over, there is no work, prices have gone up, people have left the country. We have nothing left.”

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/famine-looms-afghanistan-leaving-millions-hungry-rcna10400

The post With famine looming over Afghanistan, millions struggle for every meal first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

However, starvation is not the only issue faced by children. As UNICEF warns “Afghanistan was already one of the toughest places on earth to be a child. Right now, the situation is desperate.” The situation deteriorates quickly as the country is on a brink of famine.

The crisis has especially affected women and girls, who face disproportionally greater obstacles, including to obtaining food, health care, and financial resources. As the U.N. warns: “The Taliban bans that are keeping women from most paid jobs have hit households in which women were the main earners the hardest. Even in areas in which women are still allowed to work – such as education and health care – they may be unable to comply with Taliban requirements for a male family member to escort women to and from work.”

Recent weeks have seen yet another trend: families selling their children, and mostly girls, so that families could buy food. In one of reported cases, a six-year-old girl and 18-month-old toddler were sold for $3,350 and $2,800 respectively. In another reporting, a 9-year-old girl was sold for about $2,200 in the form of sheep, land and cash. There are many more such stories. Indeed, in November 2021, UNICEF reported that child marriage is at increase in Afghanistan.

Some of these girls will become child brides. Despite the fact that the law prohibits marrying children under 15 (and still below the internationally recommended standard of 18), child marriage is widely practiced in Afghanistan. Child marriage has significant effect upon girls. According to research, child marriage has devastating consequences on a girl’s health. Child marriage are also a major violation of their human rights and can sometimes amount to a form of modern day slavery. While poverty may drive child marriage, child marriage traps girls in a cycle of poverty. Child marriage further puts girls at risk of physical and sexual abuse.

Some of the girls will be turned into child laborers. Save the Children research into the issue suggests that in Afghanistan, and a few other countries, children are not returning to school because of child labor, child marriage and financial hardship, which have only worsened with the pandemic. The current crisis will only exacerbate the situation. Furthermore, girls in secondary education have not been allowed back to school since the Taliban took over.

The issue of nearing famine in Afghanistan requires an urgent response. However, considering U.N. and unilateral sanctions in place, it is unlikely that this will change. In August, the Treasury Department issued general licenses allowing some actors to engage in transactions with the Taliban to allow for the provision of humanitarian assistance. However, the sanctions in place continue to cause hesitation and confusion among many donors. Governments and international organizations must work together to address this ever-growing man-made crisis. The people of Afghanistan cannot be left to starve. Afghan girls cannot be sacrificed.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab

Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. Ochab works on the topic of genocide, with specific focus on the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world, with main projects including the Daesh genocide in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram atrocities in West Africa, the situation of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and of the Uyghurs in China. Ochab has written over 30 reports for the UN (including Universal Periodic Review reports) and has made oral and written submissions at the Human Rights Council, the UN Forum on Minority Issues, PACE and other international and regional fora. Ochab authored the initiative and proposal to establish the UN International Day Commemorating Victims and Survivors of Religious Persecution. The initiative has led to the establishment of the UN International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief on August 22. Follow @EwelinaUO

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/11/25/afghan-girls-being-exchanged-for-food-as-famine-nears/?sh=28c7e5295e1f

The post Afghan Girls Being Exchanged For Food As Famine Nears first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Recent analysis by the UN agency reveals 41 million people in 43 countries “are teetering on the very edge of famine”, up from 27 million two years ago.

Help needed now
“I am heartbroken at what we’re facing in 2021. We now have four countries where famine-like conditions are present”, WFP chief David Beasley told its Executive Board on Monday, according to a press release.

He described the situation as “just tragic”, as “these are real people with real names.”

WFP said 584,000 people are already experiencing famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen.

Nigeria and Burkina Faso are also of particular concern as they have pockets where famine-like conditions are present.

“In Somalia in 2011, 260,000 people died of hunger – and by the time the famine was actually declared – half of that number had already died,” Mr. Beasley recalled. “We can’t debate the numbers to death when people need our help now.”

Conflict, climate change and currency depreciation
Hunger has risen due to conflict, climate change and economic shocks, WFP said. However, soaring prices for basic foods have also compounded the situation, with the global cost of maize rising almost 90 per cent year-on-year, for example.

In many countries, currency depreciation is also a factor, the agency added. This has driven prices even higher, stoking food insecurity in places such as Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

WFP is this year mounting its biggest operation ever, targeting 139 million people. With sufficient funding and access, the agency said it can provide them with lifesaving food and nutritional assistance.

Mr. Beasley underlined the urgent need for support.

“I want to emphasize just how bad it is out there. Today, 41 million people are literally knocking on famine’s door. The price tag to reach them is about $6 billion. We need funding and we need it now,” he said

Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472

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