Driven by extreme weather events and conflict, the number of people facing acute food insecurity soared from 135 million in 2019 to 345 million in 2022. More than 150 million people experienced it in 17 regions of Africa and Asia alone.
- Extreme weather and conflict drove acute hunger through the Sahel. Central African Republic, South Sudan, and eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
- In countries such as Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen, the World Food Programme (WFP) cut individual rations to reach more people. This was tantamount to taking from the hungry to feed the starving, said the WFP.
- Droughts, heatwaves, and floods destroyed crops and agricultural land, decimated livelihoods, and wreaked havoc in vulnerable communities, the WFP stated.
- Russia's suspension of an U.N.-brokered grain deal exacerbated the threat of surging food prices. The impact was particularly severe in the Horn of Africa, where civil war, climatic extremes, and the economic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic worsened already acute food shortages. In Ethiopia, a two-year civil war left an estimated 4.3 million people facing acute malnutrition, while in war-torn Yemen, this rose to 7.1 million.
- In six of these hotspots- Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen – humanitarian actions were needed to prevent starvation and death, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said in the hunger hotspots report, co-authored by the WFP.
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