The agreement between Russia and Ukraine to export grain “is critical” for countries at risk of famine, but the war is not the cause of Africa’s current food crisis, according to the International Red Cross.
“Now when we talk about famine, it’s not because of the war in Ukraine. We saw that the indicators of a food crisis emerged in Africa long before this conflict, although it complicated things and exacerbated some problems,” he explained. . Tuesday Thursday Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), speaking in Geneva.
The estimated number of people at risk of famine in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea and Djibouti plus parts of Sudan and South Sudan) is 22 million.
Maurer announced Tuesday that hospitals run by humanitarian organizations in this sprawling region have been experiencing a sharp increase in the number of severely malnourished people, especially children and pregnant women, for more than a year.
“The war in Ukraine has only brought us to this situation more clearly, and it is not because there is an agreement on the exit of grains from Ukraine that we are going to relax. One, five, ten years we will be talking about the same” , Peter Maurer added at a press conference intended to draw attention to the situation.
The president of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), Franceso Rocca, reported that a total of 24 countries across Africa are experiencing the worst food crisis in decades due to drought in some areas, flooding in others, pandemics and armed conflict.
“We expect the situation to deteriorate in 2023 and we need to act quickly to save as many lives as possible,” he said.
The IFRC is the world’s largest humanitarian aid network and coordinates the work of national Red Cross and Red Crescent offices in Muslim countries. The main mission of the ICRC is to provide assistance to victims of conflicts and disasters, including those of climate origin.
Currently, one in three children under the age of 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa is chronically malnourished and two in five pregnant women are anemic due to the scarcity of food available. Most people in this region of the world live on less than $1.90 a day.
Source: DN
