About 346 million people in Africa are facing severe food insecurity, meaning they have likely experienced hunger, in the worst crisis since 2017. Last year, the figure was about 286 million.
“The acute food insecurity situation in many of the countries where we are working – and people are already affected by armed conflict – is tipping into famine-like conditions,” said Dominik Stillhart, ICRC’s global operations director.
Insurgencies in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria have also deepened food insecurity in West Africa, which now faces its worst food crisis on record.
Many of countries dealing with conflict are also among the most severely affected by climate change, including South Sudan and Somalia, said Stillhart.
In February alone, drought killed 650,000 livestock, devastating the scores of Somalis for whom the animals represented income, safety nets and savings.
Meanwhile, global food and fuel prices are sky-rocketing, in part because of the war in Ukraine, Stillhart said.
“Our call today really is that the attention on the plight of the people of the people in Ukraine – which is of course terrible – should not prevent the world from looking at other crises,” said Stillhart.