The United Nations says climate change, conflict and economic instability created acute food insecurity for more than 113 million people around the globe last year.
In its annual Global Report on Food Crisis, the world body’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) found that of the 53 nations suffering from a shortage of food, Yemen was in the most urgent need of food aid, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.
The FAO report says that 2018 was the third consecutive year in which the number of people facing all levels of food insecurity topped the 100 million mark, although it was slightly better than 2017’s number of 124 million people. The study said some countries were less affected by severe weather events such as drought and flooding.
The study found that many of those affected by food shortages were the huge number of refugees and migrants in Bangladesh, which is sheltering more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar amid a bloody military crackdown, and Middle Eastern nations hosting refugees from war-torn Syria.
The FAO says it expects the number of displaced persons, refugees and migrants to increase if the current political and economic crisis in Venezuela persists.
