WFP chief warns of hunger pandemic in tandem with coronavirus

World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley on Tuesday warned of a hunger pandemic across the world in tandem with the coronavirus pandemic.

"At the same time while dealing with a COVID-19 pandemic, we are also on the brink of a hunger pandemic," he told the Security Council in a virtual briefing.

"In my conversations with world leaders over the past many months, before the coronavirus even became an issue, I was saying that 2020 would be facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II for a number of reasons," he said.

The wars in Syria and Yemen; the deepening crises in South Sudan and Burkina Faso and the central Sahel region; the desert locust swarms in Africa; more frequent natural disasters and changing weather patterns; the economic crisis in Lebanon affecting millions of Syrian refugees; the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia; and the list goes on, he said. "We're already facing a perfect storm."

"So today, with COVID-19, I want to stress that we are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe. Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the specter of famine a very real and dangerous possibility," he told the Security Council in a debate on the protection of civilians affected by conflict-induced hunger.

Up to 821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world -- chronically hungry. There are a further 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse, he cited the latest Global Report on Food Crisis as showing.

That means 135 million people are marching toward the brink of starvation. But a WFP analysis shows that, due to the coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020, he warned.