Hunger in the world | An unprecedented crisis

The “greatest global food crisis in modern history is underway”, warned the UN in a report published on 1^er December 2022. Conflicts, climate change, soaring prices and a possible global recession could further cloud the picture in 2023. The point in 10 countries.

Haiti

Entire areas are under the control of street gangs in Port-au-Prince. In the Cité Soleil district, the food situation is critical, while in October, 19,000 people were at the top of the food insecurity classification scale of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. agriculture (FAO) – the “disaster” level – a first in Haiti. Some 6.5 million Haitians, just over half of the country’s population, were also facing acute hunger or described as “urgent” by the organization. All against a backdrop of health crisis, with cases of cholera, and general insecurity.

Nigeria

The crisis is particularly serious in northeastern Nigeria, a region plagued by instability for more than a decade, with the offensives of the terrorist group Boko Haram. The violence has led to the displacement of 2.2 million people in 12 years, according to the UN, an uprooting that brings its share of precariousness. The populations have also been victims of climatic conditions – rare rain, which has threatened pastures, but also, in recent months, floods which have ravaged everything in their path. With more than 200 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country on the African continent and hunger affects around a third of its population, according to the FAO.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The largest country in sub-Saharan Africa – one of the five poorest states on the planet, according to the World Bank – started the year 2022 at the top of the places where the food situation was the most worrying, with 27 million people affected by severe food insecurity, according to data from UN agencies. A year later, the situation remains similar and the country remains the place where there are the most people affected by hunger in the world, due to fighting, population displacements and poverty, in particular. Legislative and presidential elections are scheduled for the end of 2023.

South Sudan

Dying of hunger: this is the situation that threatens at least 43,000 South Sudanese, the UN warned last November. Nearly 8 million of their compatriots, or two thirds of the population, also suffer from acute hunger. The youngest country in the world, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, went through a civil war from 2013 to 2018, displacing millions, and instability continues. Added to the violence are extreme weather conditions, recent torrential rains having destroyed crops. In the last decade, UN agencies declared a state of famine in two countries: in Somalia in 2011, and in parts of South Sudan in 2017.

Ethiopia

It is difficult to assess the conflict in Tigray, which began in November 2020 and described by the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International as “one of the deadliest in the world”, since independent sources are rare. The humanitarian crisis is significant, despite a peace agreement signed in November, which allowed the opening of corridors to deliver aid. Like neighboring countries, Ethiopia has suffered from a major drought that has lasted for more than a year, one of the worst in 50 years for the country, according to Oxfam. The war in Ukraine, one of the major grain exporters, made the situation even worse in 2022. At the end of August, 23,000 tons of wheat could be sent from Ukraine to Ethiopia.

Somalia

In 2011, famine claimed 260,000 lives in Somalia, half of whom were children under the age of 5. The country is still facing a major drought for two years, affecting 7.8 million people in October, according to UNICEF data – a significant increase, while 3.2 million Somalis were affected by the consequences of the arid climate in January 2022. Last October, World Health Organization representative Mamunur Rahman Malik warned that “1.8 million children – half of the country’s children – suffer from severe acute malnutrition”.

Madagascar

The big island off the coast of Africa is little known and rarely makes the headlines. Yet it is considered the first place in the world where human-induced climate change – without the other factors seen elsewhere, such as armed conflict – pushed people to the brink of starvation. The situation has persisted for a few years, as storms and floods in 2020 led to displacement and loss. The country was not spared in 2022 drought, rising prices and, in the fall, major fires.

Yemen

One of the worst humanitarian situations in the world is in Yemen, a country ravaged by war since 2014. Of a population of 30 million, half are considered not to have enough food, according to the hunger map of the world. UN World Food Programme. Nearly half of children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition. A six-month truce between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels ended last October in this poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, where two-thirds of the population depends on humanitarian aid.

Syria

Last November, Save the Children sounded the alarm, reporting a 150% increase in 6 months in the number of malnourished children in the northeast of the country. Since the beginning of the war in 2011, Syrians have been hit by insecurity, particularly in terms of food. Like its neighbour, Lebanon, the country is experiencing significant inflation and a devaluation of its currency, making food even more difficult to access. The Syrian regime is allied with Russia, which last summer vetoed in the UN Security Council a plan to extend by one year an authorization to deliver aid to areas under jihadist control and rebels, where more than 2.4 million people live, accepting only a six-month extension.

Afghanistan

The Americans left Afghanistan in August 2021. Without international recognition and under sanctions, the Taliban regained control of the country. After years of war and with assets frozen, the economy is destroyed and the infrastructure is failing. Drought has also played a role in Afghanistan’s hunger crisis, affecting 23 million people – more than half the population. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also points to the withdrawal of women’s participation in society, which has increased humanitarian ‘protection needs’.

With Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Economist