Is there a risk of a food crisis?
Food scarcity is an obvious problem in Africa and the Middle East, where, as Bloomberg the countries are heavily dependent on wheat from Russia and Ukraine, the continued disruptions of wheat, vegetable oils, corn and fertilizers by the two nations could eventually lead to a number of supply chain related issues of food around the world.
For example, this Tuesday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) denounced that if the world does not broaden its view of the war in Ukraine, “an explosion of child deaths” could occur in the Horn of Africa.
A fourth consecutive failed rainy season, rising prices and an underfunded humanitarian response have led to a 160% increase in people facing catastrophic levels of hunger and disease in Somalia.
An estimated 386,000 children in Somalia are in desperate need of treatment for life-threatening acute malnutrition. The figure exceeds the 340,000 children who needed treatment at the time of the 2011 famine.
The war in Ukraine has worsened an already very serious situation. The conflict has diverted attention and resources. Also, Somalia used to import 92% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, but now the supply lines are blocked.
“I’ve been doing this job for 22 years and I’ve been in a lot of droughts in this region and I’ve never broken down and cried in a camp. This time I have broken down on every visit. I have seen babies less than six months old, with their mothers, who are not going to survive. They walked more than 100 kilometers. They buried children on the way and some buried children on arrival,” said Rania Dagash, UNICEF deputy director for the region.