UN Aid Chief Urges Global Action Against Famine

Just back from Kenya, Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia, countries currently facing or at risk of famine, a top United Nations humanitarian official today urged the international community for comprehensive action to save people from simply “starving to death.”

“We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council.

Without collective and coordinated global efforts, he warned, people risk starving to death, succumbing to disease, stunted children, lost futures, mass displacements and reversed development gains.

“The appeal for action by the Secretary-General can thus not be understated. It was right to sound the alarm early, not wait for the pictures of emaciated dying children […] to mobilize a reaction and the funds,” O’Brien underscored, calling for accelerated global efforts to support UN humanitarian action on the ground.

Turning to the countries he visited, the senior UN official said that, about two-thirds of the population (more than 18 million people) in Yemen needed assistance, including more than seven million severely food insecure, with fighting continuing to worsen the crisis. 

Source :Morocco World News