The United Nations’ annual Global Humanitarian Overview released on Thursday estimates that around 339 million people worldwide will need humanitarian assistance and protection next year.
This is a 24% increase of 65 million from 2022, with this number standing at 274 million this year. The latest figure equates to the population of the US or four percent of total global population.
The UN and its partners, which aim to assist 230 million people in utmost need across 68 countries, also said it would require $51.5 billion in aid funding.
“It’s a phenomenal number and a depressing number,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva on Thursday, adding that it meant “next year is going to be the biggest humanitarian program” the world has ever seen.
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The UN has also said that the world is seeing the “largest global food crisis in modern history.”
“Five countries already are experiencing what we call famine-like conditions, in which we can confidently, unhappily, say that people are dying as a result,” Griffiths said.
Those countries – Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, and South Sudan – have seen portions of their populations face “catastrophic hunger” this year, but have not yet declared countrywide famines.
The UN has cited multiple reasons behind the catastrophe apart from the COVID pandemic, including the Russia-Ukraine situation.
It has also been said that outbreaks of monkeypox, Ebola, cholera, and other diseases, as well as a drought in the Horn of Africa, worsen the situation.