Ten Nations Most at Risk for Starvation

April 4 , 2021 (EIRNS)—It was a year ago on April 20, when World Food Program Director David Beasley briefed the UN Security Council that widespread famines “of Biblical proportions” would take place, unless action were taken. That has come to pass. The 10 countries at the top of the list in spring 2020, according to the WFP’s April 2020 “Global Report on Food Crises”: Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Nigeria (Northern) and Haiti.

Now today, these very same countries remain at the top of the list of 23 nations, listed in the March 23 “Hunger Hotspots” report for the period between March and July 202, released by the WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization, as an appeal for emergency action. Here are the particulars for these nations given under the heading, “Number of People in High Acute Food Insecurity in Hotspot Countries”: The number of people are in millions for each nation: D.R.C. (19.6), Afghanistan (16.9), Yemen (16.1), Nigeria (13, in 15 states and the Federal capital), Ethiopia (12.9), Syria (12.4), Venezuela (9.3), South Sudan (7.2), Sudan (7.1), Haiti (4.4).

The total number in these top 10 nations of those in high acute food security is 118.9 million. The other 13 nations on the same list have a total of 27.8 million people in dire need, bringing the combined number to 147 million. The 13 nations are: Guatemala, Honduras, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Central African Republic, Niger, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Mali, El Salvador, and Liberia.

Beasley said: “We urgently need three things to stop millions from dying of starvation: the fighting has to stop, we must be allowed access to vulnerable communities to provide life-saving help, and above all we need donors to step up with the$ 5.5 billion we are asking for this year,” according to the WFP release on the “Hunger Hotspots” report.