West Africa: FAO sounds the alarm on the risk of famine

A family in northern Senegal.

AP - Rebecca Blackwell

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

The region will have to face a serious food crisis, warns the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

In West Africa and the Sahel, 27 million people currently suffer from hunger or malnutrition.

This figure could jump by 40% and reach 38 million people by June.

In question, insecurity, drought, but also the inflationary effects on food prices, following the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

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The war in Ukraine should not make us forget the other crises in the world and in particular the food crises in Africa, this is what the FAO has been repeating for several weeks.

An international consultation bringing together African and European leaders and UN bodies is being held tomorrow Wednesday in Rome, the headquarters of the FAO.

Because the food situation is getting worse day by day, especially in West Africa.

In the Sahelian region, as well as around Lake Chad, in four years, the number of people suffering from malnutrition has quadrupled.

The reason is insecurity.

Armed groups, terrorism, but also coups, said an FAO official.

Population displacements due to these conflicts are breaking all records.

And peasants far from their fields can no longer work, which reinforces food insecurity.

Another aggravating phenomenon:

drought and climate change

.

Finally, since the Covid-19 pandemic, commodity prices have been steadily rising.

Inflation has been fueled for a month by the war in Ukraine, with the increase in the cost of energy and therefore of transport, as well as the scarcity of Ukrainian wheat on which many countries depend.

West Africa and the Sahel are trapped in a chain of circumstances that the FAO hopes to break through international solidarity.

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  • Africa

  • Food

  • UN

  • sahel