ICRC: One Quarter of Africans Face ‘Food Security Crisis'

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says one quarter of Africa’s 346 million people faces a “food security crisis.”

The problem, the ICRC says, spans the entire continent with “millions of families skipping meals every day” and “an alarming hunger situation that risks intensifying in the coming months.”

The causes, according to the ICRC, are conflict, drought, rising food prices, increases in the cost of fuel and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster going largely unnoticed. Millions of families are going hungry and children are dying because of malnutrition,” says Dominik Stillhart, the head of the ICRC’s global operations.

“We are scaling up our operations in countries like Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and Burkina Faso and many others to try and help as many people as we can, but the number of people going without food and water is staggering.”

Last month, the ICRC said Somalia was the most severely affected of the Horn of Africa countries facing the ongoing drought. The ICRC noted that crops had failed, water levels were depleted, and livestock lost.