UN warns: Famine threatens 22 million people in Horn of Africa

The United Nations World Food Program warned, Friday, August 19, 2022, that by September famine will be a threat to at least 22 million people in the Horn of Africa, where the risk of food insecurity is increasing due to drought, which has reached record levels.

The program indicated that “the lack of rainfall for the fourth consecutive season” since the end of the year 2020, exacerbated the worst drought in 40 years, and led to the death of millions of livestock, destroyed crops and plunged areas in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia into famine-like conditions, with more than a million people have left their homes in search of water and food.

At the beginning of the year, the World Food Program warned that 13 million people in the Horn of Africa were severely food insecure due to drought.

By the middle of the year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine captured the attention of international donors and raised food and fuel prices, that number had risen to 20 million, according to WFP.

“Now, the number is expected to rise again to at least 22 million people by September,” the World Food Program said in a statement.

“This number will continue to rise, and hunger will worsen if the rains do not fall, from October to December, and the most vulnerable people do not receive humanitarian assistance,” the statement continued.

“There does not appear to be an end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must have the resources necessary to save lives and prevent people from sliding into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation,” the statement quoted WFP Executive Director David Beasley as saying.