Haiti, the Sahel and Sudan placed on high alert by the UN

The food insecurity of the populations of these four countries has reached a level that is more than worrying. Haiti, the Sahel (along with Mali and Burkina Faso) and Sudan are now among the areas on high alert, where the UN is calling for “urgent” attention from the international community. This alert is due “to the severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods in Haiti, as well as in Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as the recent outbreak of conflict in Sudan”, explain the United Nations Organization for food and agriculture (CAM) and the World Food Program (WFP) in a joint report made public on Monday. The war in Sudan, which erupted in April between the army chief and his rival, is likely “to have significant ramifications for its neighboring countries”, the report warns.

These four countries join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen which were already on high alert. Concretely, this means that part of their population is exposed to famine or is at risk of suffering from it, corresponding to the “disaster” phase (phase 5), the highest of the food security classification (CIP), or that the inhabitants of these countries risk a deterioration towards catastrophic conditions because they are already in an emergency situation (phase 4).

The El Niño threat

The report looks at a total of eighteen global hunger ‘hotspots’, comprising 22 countries, and attempts to provide a six-month outlook.

He also worries for these already fragile regions of the probable return of the El Niño climatic phenomenon, which would have an 82% chance of returning during the May-July period, according to a study cited by the report.

El Niño is usually associated with rising temperatures, increased drought in some parts of the world, and heavy rains in others. “This change in climatic patterns may have significant implications for different regions of the world” and in particular for “several hunger hotspots”, fear the FAO and the WFP.


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