Djibouti: Emergency warning highlights sharp spike in hunger

“Urgent action is more than necessary to reduce consumption deficits and vulnerabilities and strengthen the resilience of affected households to prevent their food situation from moving to more severe levels of hunger,” according to new analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) index.

The latest data reflects a significant increase from the previous May to June period, according to the report.

Most of the people affected are refugees living in Ali Addeh and Holl-Holl camps where most households still depend on food aid. Nearly 70 percent of their population, or more than 21,000 people, is at crisis level or higher, the report said.

Read the full report Here.

El Niño, rising food prices and inflation

The country of one million people in the Horn of Africa faces multiple challenges affecting food security, and the latest report highlights three main factors that will trigger a spike in hunger over the next six months:

• Climate hazards: Towering El Niño Certain conditions, including irregular seasonal rains, increased temperature extremes and drought, will cause water droplets to dry up and reduce the last available pasture for livestock, drastically reducing agricultural production and grazing activities.
• High food prices: Disruptions to regional trade flows and geopolitical tensions around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait impact food import costs, disrupt supply chains and reduce product availability in local markets
• Economic shock: Inflation strangles the already weak purchasing power of rural and peri-urban households, limiting their access to food, leading to higher production costs and a slowdown in economic growth at the national level.

Hunger tracker

The coverage of food aid provided so far remains generally inadequate, the ICP report found.

Therefore, most aid recipients experience significant food consumption deficits and very high levels of acute malnutrition.

A network of humanitarian organizations tracking hunger and starvation conditions around the world, IPC was founded during the devastating 2004 famine in Somalia to create a standard scale for measuring food and nutrition security.

The aim was to issue warnings to enable the prevention of widespread famine and famine.

Read our explanation of how hunger is classified Here.