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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David Beasley: “We are now looking, literally, at 2021 being the worst humanitarian crisis year since the beginning of the United Nations. … We have to prioritize, as I say, the icebergs in front of the Titanic. We’ve really got to give priority to famine, destabilization and migration.”

Beasley predicts a record 235 million people around the world will need humanitarian aid next year — a 40% increase from 2020. The World Food Programme will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, International Human Rights Day.

Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/7/headlines/world_food_programme_chief_warns_of_catastrophic_humanitarian_crisis_in_2021

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A department store in Pyongyang. Photo: AP

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Around 20 million Yemenis are food insecure, UN agencies said on Saturday, adding the conflict ravaging the impoverished country was the key driver behind rising hunger levels.

“As many as 20 million Yemenis are food insecure in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” a joint statement by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the children’s fund Unicef and the World Food Programme (WFP) said.

“Already 15.9 million people wake up hungry” in Yemen, it said, citing an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a food security survey.

According to the IPC – whose analysis is necessary to decide whether to declare famine in countries – the 20 million people facing “severe acute food insecurity” represent 67 per cent of Yemen’s population.

“What the IPC tells us is alarming,” said Lise Grande, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

WFP head David Beasley said the analysis “is an alarm bell that shows hunger is rising”.

“We need a massive increase in aid and sustained access to all areas in Yemen in order to rescue millions of Yemenis. If we don’t, we will lose an entire generation of children to hunger,” he warned.

A WFP spokesman said the organisation aims to scale up its support programme in Yemen from the current level of 7-8 million people to reach 10 million by the end of December and 12 million by end January.

“This scale-up is an ambitious undertaking for WFP, which will demand massive resources both logistical and financial,” said Herve Verhoosel. “WFP has enough food stocks in country for now but will need US$152 million a month to sustain its scale-up into next year.”

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis spiraled in Yemen after a Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive to support the government against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in March 2015.

It has killed at least 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation.

The latest report comes as Yemeni government representatives and a rebel delegation were holding UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden.

The armed conflict was at the top of a list of the “key drivers of food insecurity”, which has been further exacerbated by a protracted economic crisis in the impoverished Gulf Peninsula country.

Yemen’s finances have been devastated by the conflict, with the World Bank reporting the economy has contracted by around 50 per cent since 2015.

Unemployment is running at over 30 per cent and inflation is projected at around 42 per cent, while the majority of state employees are not paid.

A slide in the value of the riyal also has caused food prices in the famine-threatened country to soar.

“A large proportion of the population, even in more stable areas, cannot access basic food commodities because food prices have jumped by 150 per cent compared to pre-crisis levels,” the statement said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: 20 million at risk of famine in Yemen

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Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/2177094/yemen-20-million-people-are-risk-famine-fighting-continues

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In the worst-case scenario, the war-torn nation “faces a risk of famine” if there is prolonged and significant disruption to imports through its two Red Sea ports, said a specialist U.S.-based agency.

More people are predicted to go hungry in July 2018 than in the same month last year, added the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its latest analysis, which focuses on projected food needs for July.

A Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthi movement had closed key ports, Hodeidah, which is the country’s main entry point for food and humanitarian supplies, and Saleef, in early November.

The U.S.-backed coalition accuses Iran of sending weapons to its Houthi allies through Hodeidah. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Yemen, a nation of 28 million people, imports more than 85 percent of its food and medicine.

The ports have temporarily re-opened for 30 days, and cranes arrived on Monday to help with the aid flow, but it’s unclear if they will stay that way, said Stephen Anderson, Yemen country director for the World Food Programme (WFP).

“If the ports are restricted again we could face a catastrophic loss of life if we can’t get supplies to people,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Hodeidah on Monday.

Yemenis are facing “an extremely bleak outlook”, with continued conflict, high fuel and food prices and disease concerns such as the cholera outbreak and the spread of diphtheria, Anderson added.

Disrupting humanitarian access would deepen what the United Nations already calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, said Rosanne Marchesich, a Rome-based emergency response team leader at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In 2017, 17 million Yemenis, or about two-thirds of the population, were considered hungry, with 6.8 million needing immediate, adequate and sustained food assistance, WFP said.

The numbers have gone up with 8.4 million now on the brink of famine, it added.

With 70 percent of the rural population dependent on agriculture for food and income, sustaining production is crucial, FAO’s Marchesich told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Yet, below average rainfall, fighting and limited, expensive inputs such as fertilizers, have pushed down yields, she added.

Yemenis have exhausted strategies to cope with the crisis and some are selling off their assets for short-term survival, deepening poverty and food insecurity, she warned.

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