UN: Number of people facing starvation set to double due to coronavirus
The world is standing on the brink of a “global humanitarian catastrophe”, the head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has said, with the coronavirus pandemic set to exacerbate “a perfect storm of deepening crises”.
Speaking to the UN Security Council, David Beasley said that even before Covid-19 the world was approaching a hunger pandemic, with 135m already facing “crisis levels of hunger”.
Now, due to the pandemic, 130m more people are facing the threat of starvation by the end of the year.
The “spectre of famine is a very real possibility”, he said.
Currently, the WFP provides assistance to around 100m people around the world, but Beasley had a stark warning as to the potential outcome of the disease:
“If we can’t reach these people with the life-saving assistance they need, our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period”.
Beasley’s warnings came as the UN released its annual Global Report on Food Crises, which highlights conflict-wracked countries such as Yemen, South Sudan, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela as especially vulnerable.
In Yemen up to 17m people face critical levels of food shortages due to the ongoing civil war.
Calling for combatants to provide “swift and unimpeded” access for aid workers, Beasley warned that if immediate action was not taken, the world could face famines of “biblical proportions”.
He also called for $350m (£283.2m) in new funding in order for the WFP to keep global supply chains running through the current crisis.
“We do not have time on our side, so let’s act wisely – and let’s act fast”, he concluded.