The global aid organization Oxfam is sounding the alarm with its new report "First Crisis, Then Catastrophe" which shows that 263 million people are at risk of being thrown into extreme poverty this year due to pandemics, inequality and inflation on food and energy, something that has gotten worse. due to the war in Ukraine.
The figure corresponds to the total population of Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain.
Oxfam believes that the catastrophe is far from equal, with poorer countries facing looming debt crises and lower incomes, while corporate profits are rising and billionaires' wealth is increasing.
"First came the pandemic and then came historically high food prices and the war in Ukraine.
Collectively, those crises create an acute catastrophe of a rarely seen kind ", says Hanna Nelson, policy manager Oxfam Sweden in a press release, and continues:
"We live in a time when many of us are affected, but for the people living in extreme poverty, the situation means that they have to choose between buying medicine, food or shelter.
An inhuman choice that for many means hunger and, in the worst case, starvation and death ",
Oxfam's new report predicts that by the end of the year, a total of 860 million people are expected to live below the subsistence minimum, at less than SEK 20 per day, and they are now calling for economic creativity, solidarity and political will to solve the crisis.