Church agencies respond as famine threatens 20 million

The United Nations says the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of the Second World War, with starvation and famine threatening more than 20 million people in Nigeria, East Africa and Yemen.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said last week that US$4.4 billion (£3.6bn) was needed by the end of March to avert disaster.

The 14m people facing food insecurity – or an inability to get enough good, nutritious food – in Yemen, are suffering because of the civil war between the Government, backed by Saudi Arabia, which has bought billions of pounds of arms from Britain, and Houthi rebels, supported to a greater or lesser extent by Iran.

The plight of the 4.9m people on the edge of starvation in South Sudan is a result of the tribally based civil war between President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his dismissed vice-president, Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer.

The 1.8m people facing food security in northeast Nigeria are going hungry as a result of the activities of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Instability and insecurity caused by the al-Shabaab Islamist militant group, combined with a drought that has killed livestock and crops, means that 2.9m Somalis are immediately threatened by famine, including more than 363,000 children who are acutely malnourished.

Cafod and other agencies in Britain have launched emergency appeals for South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as for Kenya and Ethiopia, both affected by severe drought. Cafod’s Director Chris Bain (pictured) said on Monday that “vulnerable people in East Africa are now on the brink of starvation”. He added: “We have been working over the long term with our partners in some of the worst-hit areas but have reached a point where we need more support to help communities facing severe hunger.”

The agency’s Head of Africa, Fergus Conmee, who recently visited South Sudan, said: “Hunger is evident in the thinness of children, the blindness of many men and women, the way clothes hang from bodies of people already suffering and the weary looks of people who know that over the next six months things are only going to get worse for them and their families.”

Christian Aid’s Mohamed Adow blamed climate change for the crisis. “Across the Horn of Africa we’re seeing what happens when temperatures rise and rainfall becomes more erratic,” he told The Tablet. “This is the human face of climate change and we can expect more of this in future if nothing is done to tackle it”. He called for “a dual response of providing emergency humanitarian assistance to save lives right now but also address the causes of this crisis by tackling climate change”. The Kenyan Government has declared the drought a national disaster, affecting more than 2m people in the north of the country.

Tearfund reports that Ethiopia is currently in the worst drought for 50 years, with over 10.2m people needing food assistance. Harvests have failed and the water sources are drying up.

The 13 agencies, combined in the Disasters Emergency Com­mittee, have already raised £20m for the Yemen emergency.