food crisis - The African Mirror

Jan

2023

Africa needs to learn to feed itself, says Senegal president

BATE FELIX AFRICA must produce more food instead of relying on imports and aid, Senegalese President Macky Sall told leaders gathered in the West African nation's capital for a summit. The continent is facing its worst food crisis ever, with more than one in five Africans – a record 278 million people – facing hunger, according to United Nations estimates. Heavy debt burdens from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine which raised prices of fuel, grain and edible oils and diverted aid have added to long-term causes of food insecurity such as climate change and conflict, experts say. "Africa…

Jan

2021

By The African Mirror

Violence create food crisis Mozambique

NEWS

MILITANT attacks that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province have created a humanitarian crisis, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP). "What is happening is nothing short of a food security and nutritional crisis," WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri told a U.N. briefing. "This is a humanitarian disaster." The attacks have forced 570,000 people to flee, Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi said last month, saying he would defeat insurgents who stepped up attacks since pledging loyalty to Islamic State last year. Speaking ahead of a joint briefing by U.N. agencies…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Fresh wave of crop-ravaging locust swarms threaten E. African herders, farmers

ENVIRONMENT

NITA BHALLA and MOHAMMED OMER A new generation of locust swarms is threatening to wipe out the livelihoods of farmers and herders across eastern Africa - deepening a food crisis in a region where 35 million people are already hungry, the United Nations warned on Wednesday. From January to August, massive desert locust swarms swept across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, ravaging crops and decimating pasture in the worst outbreak in decades. Governments, supported by U.N. agencies and international charities, responded with large-scale aerial and ground spraying of pesticides to destroy the swarms, which scientists have linked to climate change. But…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Child malnutrition reaches new highs in parts of Yemen – U.N. survey

WORLD

PARTS of Yemen are seeing their highest levels of acute malnutrition in children, heightening warnings that the country is approaching a dire food security crisis, according to a U.N. report. Drivers of malnutrition in Yemen worsened in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic, economic decline, floods, escalating conflict and significant underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded an already bleak hunger situation after almost six years of war. "We've been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis. If the war doesn't end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing…