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Number of People Facing Extreme Hunger Up Over 50% in Past 3 Years, Analysis Reveals

© AP Photo / Mustafa QuraishiA child picks up rotten tomatoes , New Delhi, India (File)
A child picks up rotten tomatoes , New Delhi, India (File) - Sputnik International, 1920, 30.12.2022
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The number of people facing extreme hunger increased by almost 57% to 25.3 million in the last three years, Save the Children's analysis showed on Thursday.
"The number of people facing severe levels of hunger has surged by almost 57% to 25.3 million from 16.1 million since 2019 in the 8 worst affected countries amid an unprecedented global hunger crisis with increasing pockets of famine-like condition," the organization said on the website.
According to the organization, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen are the countries with the highest numbers of people facing emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition.
Afghanistan is the most affected country, with the number of people facing severe levels of hunger having increased to 6.6 million in 2022 from 2.5 million in 2019, Save the Children said, adding that "this year there have been reports of caregivers resorting to desperate coping mechanisms, with some even forced to sell their own children."
"In Afghanistan we are finding that children are so hungry that they are unable to remember what they have learnt at school. As a result of malnutrition, they are also more susceptible to life threatening diseases such as cholera. We are also seeing a worrying increase in damaging coping mechanisms such as child marriage and child labour," Nora Hassanien, acting Save the Children's country director in Afghanistan, said in the statement.
"Responding to this rising need is impossible without the full participation of women in the response, and we’re extremely worried about these findings in the context of the current suspension of programmes."
Yemen is the second country hit the most by hunger, with the number of people facing acute malnutrition having risen from 3.6 million to 6 million, a 66% increase in the last two years.
"Nearly eight years of conflict and severe economic decline are driving critical hunger and protection risks in Yemen. Children face the triple threat of starvation, bombs and disease. Over the past 18 months we have seen an increase in children suffering from acute malnutrition. The needs of children in Yemen still far outweigh current levels of funding and support," Shannon Orcutt, Save the Children's spokesperson for Yemen, was quoted in the statement.
Yemen is followed by DRC with 4.1 million people facing severe levels of hunger. In Sudan and South Sudan, there are some 2.3 million people on the verge of starvation, while Somalia has 1.3 million and CAR has 652.000 people facing acute levels of hunger.
The organization cited World Food Programme (WFP) as saying that the world is now facing the worst hunger crisis in modern history, with some 60 million children under five "could be acutely malnourished by the end of 2022." According to the WFP, the number of people at risk of acute food insecurity or facing hunger has risen to 345 million in 82 from 135 million in 53 countries since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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