UNITED NATIONS: There is a “real risk” of multiple famines this year, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday and urged ministers meeting on food security to take practical steps to stabilize food markets and reduce commodity price volatility.
“We face an unprecedented global hunger crisis,” Guterres told the meeting in Berlin via video. “The war in Ukraine has compounded problems that have been brewing for years: climate disruption; the COVID-19 pandemic; the deeply unequal recovery.”
More than 460,000 people in Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan are in famine conditions under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — a scale used by UN agencies, regional bodies and aid groups to determine food insecurity. This is the step before a declaration of famine in a region.
Millions of people in 34 other countries are on the brink of famine, according to the IPC.
“There is a real risk that multiple famines will be declared in 2022. And 2023 could be even worse,” said Guterres, calling mass hunger and starvation unacceptable in the 21st century.
Guterres said there could be no effective solution to the crisis unless Ukraine and Russia, which produce about 29 percent of global wheat exports, find a way to properly resume trade.
Shipments from Ukrainian ports have been halted by Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Moscow wants certain Western sanctions lifted in order to resume its grain and fertilizer exports.
The United Nations and Turkey are trying to broker a deal.
Guterres did not elaborate on the talks, saying: “Public statements could hinder success.”
He also asked ministers at the Berlin meeting to address a finance crisis in developing countries.
World faces unprecedented global hunger crisis, UN chief says
https://arab.news/p57z2
World faces unprecedented global hunger crisis, UN chief says
- More than 460,000 people in Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan are in famine conditions
- Millions of people in 34 other countries are on the brink of famine
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
