By Charlotte Webster-
The head of the U.N. food agency has sounded alarm that the world is “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that coud kill millions in poor countries quicker than the virus itself.
His grim warning that today 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world, with a further 135 million people are facing “crisis levels of hunger or worse,” presents the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic gripping the world. Beasley said that a new World Food Program analysis shows that as a result of COVID-19 an additional 130 million people “could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.
Beasley told the U.N. Security Council that even before COVID-19 became an issue, he had told world leaders that “2020 would be facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.” The reasons he have had nothing to do with Covid-19, but would have been exacerbated by the pandemic which took the world by surprise. Beasley had cited wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, locust swarms in Africa, frequent natural disasters and economic crises including in Lebanon, Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia, as the reasons behind his warning last year.
“In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation,” he said.
Nigerians rush to stock food supplies for lockdwn Image: bbc.com
According to WFP, the 10 countries with the worst food crises in 2019 were Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti.
The U.N chief said he raised the prospect of “a hunger pandemic” because “there is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.”
“The truth is, we do not have time on our side, so let’s act wisely — and let’s act fast,” Beasley said. “I do believe that with our expertise and partnerships, we can bring together the teams and the programs necessary to make certain the COVID-19 pandemic does not become a humanitarian and food crisis catastrophe.”