The truce will bring some relief to a country exhausted by war and famine, but critics say the Houthis will use the peace to regroup
The UN has announced that the warring sides in Yemen have agreed to extend the current ceasefire for a further two months.
Late on Tuesday the government and the Houthi rebels committed to intensify efforts on negotiations, said Hans Grundberg, special envoy for the country.
Continue reading...Attack on Odesa port had cast doubt on deal negotiated by Turkey and UN to avoid widespread famine
A ship carrying Ukrainian grain has left the port of Odesa for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion under an internationally brokered deal to unblock Ukraine’s agricultural exports and ease a growing global food crisis.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn, finally set sail for Lebanon on Monday morning, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry, following weeks of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, led by Turkey and the United Nations.
Continue reading...A toxic combination of climate emergency, conflict and Covid is pushing some of the poorest countries into an acute hunger crisis
Global hunger toll soars by 150m as Covid and war make their mark
The world is in the grip of an unprecedented hunger crisis. A toxic combination of climate crisis, conflict and Covid had already placed some of the poorest countries under enormous strain, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent grain and fuel prices soaring.
“We thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), in June. “But this war has been devastating.”
Continue reading...Unprecedented food shortages could spark riots in dozens of countries as Black Sea blockade adds to pressures, says WFP chief
Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned.
Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia.
Continue reading...UK government urged to act as worst drought in 40 years threatens region while aid efforts and global attention remain focused on Ukraine war
The UK government has been urged to give the hunger crisis gripping the Horn of Africa “proper attention”, as new polling showed just two in 10 people in Britain are aware that the worst drought in 40 years is even taking place, let alone threatening famine.
As the war in Ukraine rages, the combined effect of three failed rainy seasons has pushed parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the brink, killing livestock, forcing people to leave their homes and increasing levels of child malnutrition. The Russian invasion has exacerbated the situation, pushing up the price of staples such as wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fuel.
Continue reading...With hunger across Horn of Africa and 600,000 children out of school, ‘desperate’ parents push more girls into early marriage
Drought-afflicted areas of Ethiopia are seeing “dramatic” increases in child marriage as the worst climate-induced emergency for 40 years pushes people to the brink, the head of Unicef has said.
Three consecutive failed rainy seasons have brought hunger, malnutrition and mass displacement to millions of people in the Horn of Africa, including parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti.
Continue reading...Besieged region has an estimated 2 million people suffering from an extreme lack of food
A convoy of aid trucks has arrived in Tigray, the first emergency food supplies to reach the besieged region of northern Ethiopia by road for more than 100 days.
Two weeks after Abiy Ahmed’s government declared an immediate “humanitarian truce” with rebel Tigrayan forces to allow aid in, the World Food Programme said it had received the assurances it needed to dispatch 20 trucks containing vital supplies of food.
Continue reading...UN warns up to 18 million could be in need of aid by September as food prices soar due to conflict, poor harvests and economic crisis
The number of people who are severely hungry in Sudan could double by September as a result of poor harvests, economic crisis, internal conflict and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UN has warned.
In a joint statement, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation said more than 18 million people could face extreme hunger over the coming months, up from about 9 million currently in need of aid.
Continue reading...Blockaded region faces severe humanitarian crisis after 16 months of war, with UN estimating 5 million people in urgent need of food
Ethiopia’s government has declared an immediate “humanitarian truce” with rebel Tigrayan forces to allow aid into the besieged northern region where millions of people are facing starvation.
The government led by the prime minster, Abiy Ahmed, said the ceasefire declared on Thursday could “pave the way for the resolution of the conflict in northern Ethiopia without further bloodshed”, and analysts in the country expressed hopes that if it holds, the deal may lead to a diplomatic resolution.
Continue reading...Efforts to stock up Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro are under way as the wider repercussions of the conflict are felt in Yemen and Lebanon
Aid workers are racing to deliver emergency food supplies to Ukrainian cities at risk of “medieval tactics of besiegement”, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) has said.
In a dramatic turnaround for a country long hailed as the “breadbasket of the world”, the UN’s emergency food agency is now trying to get stocks into warehouses in Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro before it is too late, said Jakob Kern.
Continue reading...UN says 70% of the population will struggle through the coming season as humanitarian workers are killed and supplies raided
Looting of emergency food supplies and attacks on aid workers are rising in South Sudan, where hunger is causing unrest.
A security vacuum is fuelling the violence as communities take up arms to fend for themselves amid unprecedented food shortages, aid agencies have warned.
Continue reading...Aid agencies warn of ‘ripple effect’ as soaring wheat prices hit countries already facing inflation, food insecurity and conflict
Concerns are growing across the Middle East and north Africa that the war in Ukraine will send prices of staple foods soaring as wheat supplies are hit, potentially fuelling unrest. Russia and Ukraine supply a quarter of the world’s wheat exports, while Egypt is the world’s biggest importer of wheat.
In Tunisia, like many people queueing for bread in Tunis’s sprawling medina, or old town, Khmaes Ammani, a day labourer, said the rising cost of living was leaving him squeezed. “There’s never any money at the end of the month,” he said. “I even have to borrow some. Everything is getting more expensive.”
Continue reading...As sandstorms ruin crops and drought worsens food shortages, mothers are walking miles to feed their children at clinics
After four vicious storms in as many weeks and the worst drought in 40 years, there are fears that the hunger crisis facing 2 million people in southern Madagascar could become a famine. With record low rainfalls in the Grand Sud region, USAid’s Famine Early Warning Network is warning that large-scale humanitarian support will be needed until next year.
Food shortages have been compounded by three cyclones and one tropical storm that have ravaged parts of the south and east of the country since late January. The most recent hit the south-east coast on 22 February, affecting thousands of people.
Continue reading...UN warns of looming catastrophe as hundreds of thousands more arrive at settlements that do not have enough food or water
Somalia’s displacement camps are coming under intense pressure with more than 300,000 people leaving their homes in search of food and water so far this year as the country experiences its worst drought in decades.
People have been walking miles to camps, already home to those escaping the country’s protracted violence, after three consecutive failed rainy seasons since October 2020 that have decimated crops and livestock. Somalia has more than 2,400 such settlements, which already lack resources.
Continue reading...Animal carcasses litter the land in areas where the rains have failed, as millions go without enough food and water in a country already grappling with civil war
The circumference of Nimo Abdi Duh’s upper arm measures just 12cm and, while the number means nothing to her, it does to the health workers treating her. Nimo, two, like so many children in the arid lowlands of Ethiopia, is suffering from malnutrition.
“We have been affected by the drought,” says her mother, Shems Dire, looking anxiously on. “We don’t have milk to give to the children. My child is sick due to lack of food, and this happened because of the drought … Our cattle have been harmed by the drought. We have lost so many.
Continue reading...Aid workers call for ‘humanitarian pause’ so crucial supplies can be delivered, after first assessment of hunger in the region since war broke out
At least 2 million people in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray are suffering from an extreme lack of food, with the 15-month conflict between rebel and government forces pushing families to the brink, the UN’s emergency food agency has found.
In the first comprehensive assessment the World Food Programme (WFP) has carried out in Tigray since the start of the war, 37% of the population were found to be severely food insecure, meaning they had at times run out of food and gone a day or more without eating.
Continue reading...Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress
From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.
Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.
Continue reading...Years of fighting mean children as old as 10 have never been to school. Khaled Ziad’s images document a generation whose entire future is at risk
Their classroom has no roof, no seats, no desks; most of the 50 small children sitting on the rubble-strewn floor have no pens or paper. But the students in this makeshift school in Hays, a village in Yemen’s Hodeidah province, are still among the luckiest in the country simply for having a teacher and a place to learn.
Seven years into a catastrophic war that sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Yemen’s conflict shows no signs of ending soon, and the future of an entire generation is at risk of being destroyed. About 3 million children are unable to attend school, according to the Red Cross, with 8.1 million needing urgent educational assistance.
Continue reading...Nomads’ herds are dying along with rare wildlife as the longest dry spell in memory edges pastoralists ever nearer starvation
Dahabley smells of rotting flesh. Bodies of starved cows lie in various stages of decomposition, after being dragged to the outskirts of the village in Wajir county, north-east Kenya. They are added to on a near-daily basis and fester in the heat amid multiplying flies.
North-east Kenya is well used to spells of drought, but it is experiencing the worst in living memory. As the region’s short rainy season, which starts in October, draws to an end, parts of Wajir have only seen small showers and other areas have had no rain at all for more than a year.
Continue reading...There is a ‘very small window of opportunity’ to intervene, say aid workers, as poverty, conflict, drought and a freeze in humanitarian funding bring Afghanistan to the brink
Leading UK charities have launched a joint winter appeal to save the lives of 8 million people at risk of starvation in Afghanistan, as aid workers in the country warn of a “small window of opportunity” to intervene.
A combination of conflict, economic collapse, drought and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the country to a tipping point, according to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the umbrella group of 15 aid agencies behind the appeal.
Continue reading...