The UN has warned that the coronavirus crisis will push more than a quarter of a billion people to the brink of starvation unless swift action is taken to provide food and humanitarian relief to the most at-risk regions.
About 265 million people around the world are forecast to be facing acute food insecurity by the end of this year, and 130 million estimated to suffer severe food shortages last year.
Global hunger could become the next big impact of the pandemic, warns the Global Report on Food Crises, by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Food Programme and 14 other organisations, published on Tuesday.
António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said the report must be a call to action.
“The upheaval that has been set in motion by the Covid-19 pandemic may push even more families and communities into deeper distress,” he wrote in the foreword.
