UN warned of “biblical proportion” famine in the nearest months

“If we don’t prepare and act now – to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade – we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months”, - Beasley said.

The Food Crisis Report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that $ 350 million is needed in the nearest future to create a network of logistics centers to deliver humanitarian aid to the most affected areas of the world. Donor countries slow down allocation.

According to the report, without considering the effects of the pandemic, 135 million people will face critical hunger. Coronavirus will increase the number by another 130 million. More than half of those 130 million - 73 million - live in Africa. 43 million in the Middle East. 18.5 million are residents of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Earlier WFP predicted large-scale hunger against the backdrop of the coronavirus epidemic.

- We seriously sound the alarm. We are afraid that a really big crisis awaits us, ” said Bettina Lusher, representative of the WFP Berlin branch.

According to her, today the organization provides emergency humanitarian assistance to 87 million people in more than 80 countries. This work is already constantly complicated by wars and natural disasters, and now a pandemic has been added to the list.

Also, UN Secretary General Antonio Guteris said the pandemic could lead to hundreds of thousands of childhood deaths as a result of hunger. First of all, these are children from the poorest countries of the world. He emphasized that about 310 million schoolchildren — almost half of all of them — receive daily lunch only in schools. Now, in a pandemic, in almost all countries, children do not go to school, and their families do not always have money for food.

To the date, 2.5 million cases of infection with a new coronavirus infection have been recorded in the world. 170 thousand people died from the disease. 652 thousand patients recovered and were discharged from medical facilities.