El Niño Causing Droughts, Food Shortages, Leaving Millions Worldwide In Need Of Assistance, U.N. Agencies Say

Agence France-Presse: A million children severely malnourished in eastern, southern Africa: U.N.
“Nearly one million children across eastern and southern Africa are suffering from ‘severe acute malnutrition’ after two years of drought and the strongest El Niño in 50 years, UNICEF said Wednesday…” (2/16).

The Guardian: El Niño is causing global food crisis, U.N. warns
“…New figures from the U.N.’s World Food Programme say 40 million people in rural areas and nine million in urban centers who live in the drought-affected parts of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and Swaziland will need food assistance in the next year. In addition, 10 million people are said by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to need food in Ethiopia, and 2.8 million need assistance in Guatemala and Honduras. Millions more people in Asia and the Pacific regions have already been affected by heatwaves, water shortages, and forest fires since El Niño conditions started in mid-2015, says OCHA in a new briefing paper, which forecasts that harvests will continue to be affected worldwide throughout 2016…” (Vidal, 2/16).

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