Climate change in eastern Africa has created weather conditions that have left nearly 25 million people facing severe food shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs warned in a press release on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th February, 2020) Climate change in eastern Africa has created weather conditions that have left nearly 25 million people facing severe food shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs warned in a press release on Thursday.
"Extreme weather events due to the climate crisis are becoming the new normal in the Greater Horn of Africa. Just two years after the 2016/2017 drought and one year after flooding in 2018, back-to-back droughts and floods in 2019 have led to rising needs and compounded the humanitarian consequences of conflict and violence in multiple locations," the release said.
The region has in recent months seen devastating floods and droughts, the release noted.
In addition to loss of lives, livestock and crops, as well as population displacement, the above normal rains and cyclonic activity in late-2019 and early-2020 contributed to a desert locust upsurge that has affected Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and spread to Uganda, South Sudan and Tanzania, the release added.
Of 24.7 million "severely food insecure people" in the region, an estimated 10.25 million are living in areas hit by locusts, the world's most dangerous migratory pest, according to the release.
Scientists blame an increase of extreme weather events throughout the world on climate change, which they say results from human activity such as burning fossil fuels to produce electricity.
