UN: 56 million people in world need food aid

SANAA , Jan. 29 (YPA) – The United Nations said 56 million people urgently needed food aid in conflict zones around the world and that food shortages had increased in eight countries experiencing war and conflict, according to a joint report by the UN World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Afghanistan, Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan were exacerbated in the latter part of 2018 because of the conflict, while Somalia, Syria and the Lake Chad basin experienced some improvement due to improved security.
The report stressed that the situation in the eight places in the world with the greatest number of people in need of emergency food support shows that the link between conflict and hunger is still ongoing.
The report also pointed out that violence against humanitarian workers was on the rise and that organizations were sometimes forced to suspend humanitarian operations, noting that aid workers and facilities in the eight countries covered by the report were attacked in 2018.
Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, while in the second half of 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had the second highest number (13 million) of food-insecure people as a result of armed conflict.