(VOVWORLD) - Some 74.9 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa region are facing food insecurity and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Authority on the Development of East Africa.
 People have to flee their homes due to prolonged drought in Dolo Ado, the border area between Ethiopia and Somalia. (Photo: AFP/VNA) |
The two institutions said of the number, 46.8 million people were from seven of the eight IGAD member states. These are Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Sudan, and Uganda. The rest are Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The report attributes the rise in the number of food-insecure people in the region from 58.1 to 74.9 million people in February to flooding caused by heavy rains.
Heavy rains from late March through April have led to severe flooding, especially in Kenya, Somalia, Burundi and Tanzania, causing loss of lives and livestock, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and destroying farmlands and critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and dams.
The report added that apart from the food crisis, the Greater Horn of Africa region is grappling with multiple outbreaks of disease.
In Sudan alone, the already poor nutrition situation is further deteriorating, marked by an alarming increase in acute cases of malnutrition, even as parts of the country face a progressively increasing risk of famine.