Four war-torn nations facing famine threat

U.N. chief: Pandemic compounds problems

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that there is a risk of famine and widespread food insecurity in four countries affected by conflict — Congo, Yemen, northeast Nigeria and South Sudan — and the lives of millions of people are in danger.

In a note to Security Council members on Friday, the U.N. chief said the four countries rank “among the largest food crises in the world,” according to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises and recent food security analyses. But funding to help is low, he said.

“Action is needed now,” Guterres said. “Having endured years of armed conflict and related violence, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, northeast Nigeria and South Sudan are again facing the specter of heightened food insecurity and potentially famine.”

The U.N. chief said key indicators “are similarly deteriorating” in several other conflict-hit countries including Somalia, Burkina Faso and Afghanistan.

“The situation varies from country to country, but civilians are being killed, injured and displaced; livelihoods are destroyed; and availability of and access to food disrupted, amid growing fragility,” Guterres said. “At the same time, humanitarian operations are attacked, delayed or obstructed from delivering life-saving assistance.”

He said food insecurity in conflict-affected countries “is now further exacerbated by natural disasters, economic shocks and public health crises, all compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said in an interview that the economic fallout from the pandemic including lockdowns, border closures and restrictions on movement have all had “a big effect on food security and agricultural productivity.”

And extremists have taken the opportunity “to make hay out of all this,” he said.

“Everybody is very preoccupied by COVID and the virus,” Lowcock said. But “it is not the virus that’s creating most of the carnage. It is other things, and we need to focus on the things that will really cause the biggest loss of life.”

Lowcock said many of the problems are consequences of COVID-19, the economic contraction, the declining availability of basic public services and “the insecurity into which extremist groups are occupying themselves.”

He said a lot of effort has gone into providing personal protective equipment and public information campaigns on the virus, water and sanitation campaigns, “all of which are good things.”

“But if you do those at the expense of basic humanitarian needs in these badly affected places, what you end up with is not a reduction in loss of life but an increase in loss of life,” Lowcock said.

He said having four countries meet the requirement in a 2018 Security Council resolution to report to the council when the risk of conflict-induced famine and widespread food insecurity occurs is highly significant.

According to the secretary-general’s note, escalating violence in volatile eastern Congo “is again driving disastrous levels of food insecurity and hunger,” and the latest analysis “indicates that over 21 million people are in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.”

With only 22 percent of the U.N. humanitarian appeal funded, Guterres said, “core programs will need to be reduced or suspended.”

In Yemen, where the international community mobilized to prevent famine two years ago, he said, “the risk is slowly returning.”