One person dies of hunger every 36 seconds between Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, the United Nations and NGOs said on Thursday, as 18.6 million people are severely food insecure in Africa's Sahel region.
The situation, which was cited by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO CARE and Oxfam at a joint press conference in Paris, is accompanied by shocking figures related to food insecurity, driven by drought linked to global warming or other conditions such as conflicts in some African countries.
In Burkina Faso, which is experiencing instability due to an armed rebellion, children were killed between January and September 2022 3 times more than during the same period in 2021, and the number of minors treated for acute malnutrition increased by 50% year-on-year, according to UNICEF.
In Niger, recurrent droughts and catastrophic floods in 2022, combined with ongoing conflicts, have made it more difficult to harvest crops, causing cereal production to drop by 40 percent, according to Nicolas Gando of Oxfam France.
Successive drought
In the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia), five consecutive scarce rainy seasons led to the death of millions of livestock and the destruction of crops.
According to the United Nations, 22 million people are at risk of hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, countries that are also witnessing armed rebellions.
CARE's Mathilde Kasper noted that more than a third of Somalia's population (6.5 million) is expected to face a food crisis between April and June, with famine expected.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a separate statement on Thursday that there had been "higher than ever" cases of malnourished children recorded by its teams in Nigeria's northeastern Maiduguri region.
Luis Nicolas Jando noted that this situation, which reflects "injustice" at the global level, is "the result of permanent inaction on the part of rich countries", as "62% of humanitarian funding needs" in these regions were barely met in 2022.
Responding to a reporter's question in November, WFP chief David Beasley said the world was "facing the worst food and humanitarian crisis since World War II".