Twenty million people living in countries within the horn of Africa risk death due to hunger, United Nations Refugee Agency has warned.
The agency has warned that there could be a repeat of a severe famine like that one of 2011 that hit the Horn of Africa; Somalia, in particular, killing more than 260,000 people. Half of them were children aged below five years.
Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan, are worst hit by the hunger situation which has been pushed farther by civil strife and lack of money.
UN Refugee Agency spokesman Adrian Edwards termed the hunger situation as “unavoidable”.
The Agency has so far requested for $4.4 billion to address the crisis in the four countries. But it has only received only $984 million, said UN humanitarian agency spokesman Jens Laerke.
Laerke urged the United Nations to pump more funds to quell the situation which could be far worse than the 2011 hunger scourge.
“It is of immediate urgency that more funds are committed to averting a further descent into disaster in these acute crises,” said Laerke.
In South Sudan alone, one million people face starvation. They have been forced to feed on leaves and seeds in hope to get food relief.
The famine in the Horn of Africa has been attributed to the conflict which has forced many people to flee their countries in search of food, shelter, and peace.
“Consecutive harvests have failed, conflict in South Sudan coupled with drought is leading to famine and outflows of refugees, insecurity in Somalia is leading to rising internal displacement, and rates of malnutrition are high, especially for children and lactating mothers,” Edward told VOA.
He added that only adequate funding would help restore normalcy in those countries.
“What we are looking at is the need for funding across the international community. This is really is an absolutely critical situation that is rapidly unfolding across a large swathe of Africa from west to east. It does need urgent addressing from a really concerted international action.”