Dina Mahmoud (London)
After years that witnessed an escalation of conflicts and lack of security and stability, along with the worsening consequences of climate change in various regions of the African continent, especially the central and western parts of it, tens of millions of people there have become subject to enormous pressures regarding securing their basic food needs. This situation prompted the International Rescue Committee, which is concerned with providing humanitarian aid and working in the field of international development, to warn that about 52 million people in West and Central Africa will likely face great pressures in terms of food security until next August, which is a period of months. Lean inter-harvest seasons.
According to this non-governmental organization, during that period, these people will become exposed to the risks of the third, fourth, and fifth stages of food insecurity, which begin with a serious lack of food security, then in a critical manner, and reach the point of famine.
The organization said that beginning to strengthen the capacity of communities exposed to these risks to deal with them will open the door to the need for rapid delivery of basic food aid to the population there, to mitigate the threats of malnutrition facing them in the lean season, which usually prevails in the months immediately preceding the start of the harvest.
Current data indicate that food insecurity has increased steadily in western and central Africa over the past five years, and is still worsening at the present time, making the number of those affected by it, in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, now approaching 7.5 million people. Compared to 5.4 million last year. The International Relief Organization warned, according to an analytical study it conducted that included 17 countries in West and Central Africa, that catastrophic famine-like conditions threaten more than 2,500 people in this region, unless urgent measures are taken to avoid this scenario from occurring.
Among the countries included in the study: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Ghana. Its results indicated that more than two-thirds of the areas analyzed in its context were in the third or fourth stages of food insecurity, warning that there are alarming levels of acute malnutrition prevailing among adolescents and women of reproductive age there. .
The results also indicated that more than 60% of families in West and Central Africa struggle to provide a healthy and nutritious diet for their members, which has led to cases of wasting among children under the age of five, in areas of Mali, Burkina Faso and northern Nigeria, reaching levels Emergency.
Malnutrition
In northern Nigeria specifically, the prevalence of acute malnutrition among women, aged 15 to 49 years, ranged between 11% and 31%, depending on the states in which they live in this region, according to a report published by the “Down to Earth” electronic platform. , concerned with environmental issues, economic security affairs, health protection and livelihood security.
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