Conflicts cause rise in hunger worldwide, says UN chief

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the world's many conflicts stand as the root cause for rise in hunger.

The UN chief said in a video message on the UN-backed Global Report on Food Crises released Thursday in Rome that this year's report "highlights the alarming increase in the number of people without enough to eat. At the root of this rise in hunger are the world's many conflicts," noting that "these have become more frequent and longer-lasting."

Driven largely by climate disasters and conflict, levels of acute hunger surged in 2017, leaving some 124 million people across 51 countries facing hunger crises, 11 million more than the previous year, according to the report.

"Reports such as this give us the vital data and analysis to better understand the challenge. It is now up to us to take action to meet the needs of those facing the daily scourge of hunger and to tackle its root causes," said the Secretary-General.

"In some countries, war has pushed whole communities to the brink of famine. At the same time, drought and disasters linked to climate change are causing increasingly severe food crises," he said.

Presented by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN World Food Program (WFP) and the European Union at a briefing, the Global Report on Food Crises finds that food emergencies are increasingly determined by complex causes such as conflict, extreme climatic shocks and high prices of staple food, often acting at the same time.

The report points out that conflict continued to be the main driver of acute food insecurity in 18 countries, 15 in Africa or the Middle East, accounting for 60 percent of the global total. Enditem