Alarming new data has today confirmed the magnitude of the hunger emergency gripping Tigray, where at least 4 million people face severe hunger and 350 000 of them are facing famine. The lack of information on people¡¯s food security in western Tigray in the IPC analysis (ipcinfo.org) is also deeply worrying.
The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ has swiftly mounted an emergency food assistance operation deploying more than 180 staff and increasing food distributions to reach 1.4 million people, yet that is barely half of the number we should be reaching. Other agencies are also struggling to reach many of the rest of Tigray¡¯s hungry.
Three things are needed to prevent hunger from claiming millions of lives in Tigray; a ceasefire, unimpeded access for Â鶹ÊÓƵ and partners to all areas, and the money to expand our operations to meet the growing numbers of people who desperately need emergency food assistance.
Mozambique¡¯s Cabo Delgado province is in the grips of a spiraling crisis as thousands of people flee their homes amidst violence, warns the United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ.
Recent attacks in Palma have affected 50,000 people. Many have fled Palma to Pemba on boats making their perilous journey over choppy waters. Thousands are still trapped in Palma and Quitunda, and Â鶹ÊÓƵ is working round the clock to secure access to those most in need. Â鶹ÊÓƵ has also been using boats from Pemba to reach those in remote areas, on surrounding coastal islands.
Conflict continues to drive hunger in northern Mozambique as more than 950,000 people now face severe hunger. Â鶹ÊÓƵ is in the process of scaling-up its response in northern Mozambique, with plans to assist 750,000 internally displaced people and vulnerable members of the local community across the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa, and Zambezia.
The number of hungry people in Central America has nearly quadrupled over two years. Devastating hurricanes compounded economic shocks caused by COVID-19 leaving millions without an income and many planning to migrate.
Agricultural and coastal communities in the Dry Corridor have borne the brunt of a years-long climate emergency that was exacerbated by hurricanes Eta and Iota last year. They are struggling to meet even their most basic needs.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ calls on the international community to support its efforts in Central America to provide immediate assistance to hard-hit communities and build their resilience.
The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ is alarmed at growing numbers of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia and Sudan because of conflict in the Tigray region of Northern Ethiopia between the Ethiopian National Defence Forces and Tigray People¡¯s Liberation Front (TPLF).
The violence has displaced upwards of 100,000 civilians fleeing conflict internally and externally.
The biggest issue hampering a humanitarian response is a lack of access for organizations, including Â鶹ÊÓƵ, both into and within the Tigray region.
Any response to assist people in need in Ethiopia is planned and conducted with the leadership of the federal and regional governments.
The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ is today warning that unless humanitarian access is urgently granted to organizations like the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, catastrophic levels of hunger could hit hard in parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The stark warning comes ahead of the High-Level Ministerial Conference on the Central Sahel in Copenhagen on 20 October 2020.
Violence and insecurity have pushed 7.4 million people in the Central Sahel region of West Africa into acute hunger. The number of internally displaced people has risen from 70,000 two years ago to nearly 1.6 million today, including over 288,000 in Mali, more than 265,000 in Niger and over one million in Burkina Faso, which is now home to the world¡¯s fastest growing displacement crisis.
South Sudan is bracing itself for a crisis. Humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating, and the spectre of terrible levels of hunger looms over the country as conflict, torrential rain and flooding disrupt people¡¯s access to food.
More than 700,000 people across South Sudan have been affected by flooding since June, especially in Jonglei and Unity States where the flooding is at its most severe. Â鶹ÊÓƵ provided food assistance to more than 500,000 people in flood-affected areas in July and August.
MAPUTO ¨C Â鶹ÊÓƵ is extremely concerned about the escalating conflict and deteriorating food security situation in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, where over 300,000 people have fled their homes and villages, abandoning their crops and leaving them completely reliant on humanitarian assistance.
Growing violence and insecurity have increased the threat of hunger in the northern province of Cabo Delgado as communities have lost access to food and income sources. Latest findings from famine early warning system FEWSNET indicate that communities will continue to face ¡®crisis¡¯ levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3) into early 2021. The situation is even more worrisome given that Cabo Delgado has the second highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the country with more than half of children under 5 chronically malnourished. Any additional shocks could rapidly worsen the situation, especially for women and children.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ Chief David Beasley addressed the UN Security Council to warn that in many vulnerable countries the economic effects of the COVID19 pandemic could cause more deaths from hunger than the virus itself especially in areas of conflict like NE Nigeria, DR Congo, Yemen and South Sudan.
¡°This is obviously a great danger that many more people will die from the broader economic and social consequences of COVID-19 than from the virus itself, especially in Africa and the last thing we need is to have the cure be worst than the disease itself. And so your continued support for humanitarian programs is critical right now.¡±
The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ today announced a massive rise in the number of hungry people it plans to assist around the world, as the devastating socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic push millions more people into food insecurity in low- and middle-income countries.
To tackle the rising tide of hunger, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is undertaking the biggest humanitarian response in its history, ramping up the number of people it assists to up to 138 million from a record 97 million in 2019. But sustained funding is urgently required to respond to the immediate consequences of the pandemic on the most vulnerable, and support governments and partners as they curb the spread of the disease and deal with the fallout from the pandemic. Â鶹ÊÓƵ is appealing for a US$ 4.9 billion over the next six months for its life-saving work in 83 countries.
As well as delivering life-saving assistance on the front-lines of hunger, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is uniquely positioned to help governments assist and empower vulnerable communities through support to social protection systems, access to basic school-based and nutrition services, and support to food systems.
With much of the world¡¯s commercial transport systems, particularly airlines, grounded by COVID-19, Â鶹ÊÓƵ - the world¡¯s largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger and a global leader in logistics ¨C has stepped in to move passengers and huge volumes of health and other supplies needed in the fight against the global pandemic.
Other Common Service facilities which Â鶹ÊÓƵ has helped set up for the humanitarian and health community include two field hospitals, one in East and the other in West Africa, and to date 16 medical evacuations have been carried out, including with Â鶹ÊÓƵ-contracted air ambulances.
On 20 May Cyclone Amphan made landfall in Bangladesh heavily impacting 19 districts with more than 2.4 million people and 500,000 livestock evacuated to 15,000 cyclone shelters by the Government of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is facing a growing number of COVID-19 cases and the impact threatens to reverse development gains made over the past five decades.
The COVID-19 virus can be deadly, but hunger is equally deadly. To ensure the most vulnerable are not left behind in the response to this pandemic, Â鶹ÊÓƵ urgently needs US$200 million for its COVID-19 response in Bangladesh.
Coronavirus may push an additional 10 million of the world¡¯s children into acute malnutrition. The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ estimates that the number of young children suffering from this life-threatening form of undernutrition could increase by 20 percent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ is ready to scale up its response to prevent and treat acute malnutrition and improve nutritious diets of children but urgently needs US$300 million to do so.
Acute malnutrition is caused by inadequate food consumption or illness, or both, resulting in sudden weight loss that, if untreated, can lead to death.
ROME/LI?GE ¨C The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ today kick-started a network of global logistics hubs that will support the entire aid community and ensure the delivery of vital medical and humanitarian supplies to developing countries at a time when commercial air transport is at a virtual standstill.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ is also mounting a regional passenger air service to ferry humanitarian and health workers across East and West Africa to overcome disruptions to commercial air services, with the first flights expected in coming days. The service will be expanded to the Middle East, Latin America and Asia soon. Â鶹ÊÓƵ also stands ready to set up air links with Geneva and Rome if commercial services are disrupted.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ appealed for an initial US$350 million to kick-start global common logistics services, a call echoed by humanitarian partners in April, who highlighted the urgency of these vital Â鶹ÊÓƵ-led efforts.
The COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020, the United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ warned today as it and other partners released a new report on food crises around the world.
The number of people facing acute food insecurity (IPC/CH 3 or worse) will rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a Â鶹ÊÓƵ projection. The estimate was announced alongside the release of the Global Report on Food Crises, produced by Â鶹ÊÓƵ and 15 other humanitarian and development partners.
In this context, it is vital that food assistance programme be maintained, including Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s own programmes which offer a lifeline to almost 100 million vulnerable people globally.
It¡¯s vital that at this time of global crisis Â鶹ÊÓƵ maintain its food assistance programmes which offer a lifeline to 87 million vulnerable people around the world. Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s top priority is to ensure it has the resources in place to meet the food and nutrition needs of the people that so depend on its assistance.
The pandemic is affecting countries in different ways. On behalf of the international community, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is providing real-time tracking of changes in the areas of food security, health access and markets in vulnerable countries. Monitoring will be complemented with early warning and security analysis of how the pandemic is impacting food and other vulnerabilities.
With COVID-19 containment measures limiting people¡¯s movement, Â鶹ÊÓƵ has introduced measures to ensure that beneficiaries receive their entitlements in as safe a way as possible.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s school feeding programme has been suspended after all schools closed due to COVID-19 and this affects more than 1 million children.
As COVID-19 cases in Syria are officially confirmed, nearly 8 million people are food insecure and already extremely vulnerable. After nine years of conflict, Syrians will need our support more than ever to stay healthy .
More than 939,000 people have been displaced by escalating conflict in northwest Syria since December 2019. They now live in over-crowded camps where an outbreak of COVID-19 could have devastating impact consequences.
The volatile security situation in Idlib has rapidly displaced nearly one million people who are also contending with harsh winter weather conditions. Families are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance as the amount of safe space for civilians across the northwest is shrinking by the day. Food prices in Idlib have risen by 120 percent.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ appeals to all parties to the conflict to end the fighting in Idlib and to allow people access to humanitarian assistance. A ceasefire is urgently needed to allow humanitarians to save lives.
Hunger continues to persist in South Sudan and is widely expected to worsen in the coming months if assistance is not scaled up. This is mainly due to the longer-term effects of the conflict which has also forced tens of thousands of families to remain in temporary shelters and millions of people to seek refuge outside the country.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ renews its call for sustained peace and urges parties to the revitalized peace process to maintain peace. If peace holds, the country has a realistic chance of bringing communities together, end years of isolation and inequity as well as eliminating hunger in the country.
