UNICEF: Climate change, Corona and the Ukraine crisis are three threats global food security

Translated by - Noor Suleiman.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday, that the world is rapidly becoming a "virtual bomb" in terms of preventable child deaths and wasted children.

"Despite increasing levels of severe wasting in children, and rising costs of life-saving treatment, global funding to save the lives of children suffering from wasting is also at risk," she noted, according to the organization's website.

 "Even before the Ukrainian war put pressure on food security, around the world, conflict, climate shocks and COVID-19 were having a catastrophic impact on families’ ability to feed their children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

"Currently, about 10 million children (2 out of every 3) who is suffering from severe wasting do not have access to ready-to-use therapeutic food, which is a more effective treatment for wasting," she noted.

The organization warned that a set of global shocks facing food security around the world, led by the Ukrainian war, the suffering of economies in order to recover from Corona, and the ongoing drought conditions in some countries due to climate change, create the conditions for a significant increase in global levels of severe wasting. .

Worldwide, at least 13.6 million children under the age of five suffer from severe wasting, causing 1 in 5 deaths in this age group.