The World Food Programme (WFP) issued a stark warning on Friday, stating that approximately 52 million people across West and Central Africa will face severe challenges in meeting their fundamental food and nutritional requirements during the approaching lean season.
This critical period, spanning from June to August when food reserves are depleted between harvests, is being exacerbated by ongoing conflict, increasing extreme weather events, and a decline in economic conditions.
The U.N. agency’s latest food security analysis indicates that nearly three million individuals within the region will experience emergency levels of hunger during this lean season.
Alarmingly, the report highlights that around 2,600 people in Mali are at risk of catastrophic hunger. Rising fuel costs are driving food inflation in countries such as Ghana, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, further compounding the issue.
Recurrent extreme weather patterns in the central Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, and the Central African Republic are also significant contributing factors.
Conflict continues to be a major driver of displacement, with the WFP reporting that 10 million people have been displaced across the region.
This includes eight million internally displaced individuals within Nigeria and Cameroon. It’s important to note that the report did not include data from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a surge in fighting in the eastern part of the country has occurred this year due to a significant advance by Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.
A separate report released in late March by the WFP and the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed that a record 28 million people in Congo are facing acute hunger, with an additional 2.5 million people becoming acutely hungry since the escalation of violence in December.
The WFP utilizes a five-phase classification system to categorize hunger levels. Crisis-level hunger (Phase 3) is just one step below emergency levels of hunger (Phase 4).
The most severe level, Phase 5, is classified as catastrophic hunger, which can, in some instances, reach the level of famine.
