The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that a number of countries face a «catastrophic famine» due to the crisis in Ukraine. Experts also said that prices of basic foodstuffs rose globally, TNG News reports.
Luca Russo, Senior Food Crisis Analyst and Head of the FAO Emergency and Resilience Management Team, said there was a risk of famine for Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, as well as for several states in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
He also commented on the statement of the UN World Food Program (WFP), which declared 2022 as the year of catastrophic famine.
The organization warned that the problem will affect 44 million people in 38 countries.
The FAO spokesman confirmed that estimate. «WFP’s estimates probably describe the situation in some states even before the developments in Ukraine. Their populations are one step away from starvation. There are serious fears that the situation there will seriously worsen as a result of the Ukrainian crisis,» Luca Russo noted.
The expert explained the possible risks by the global rise in the cost of food, the increased cost of fuel and fertilizers and delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. He recalled that 47 million children around the world suffer from malnutrition, 15.8 million of them live in states with food crisis.
Earlier, the UN analyst Eugenio Dacrema predicted a «food catastrophe» in a number of countries. He predicted grain shortages in North Africa due to the crisis in Ukraine.
