Djibouti: Emergency alert spotlights sharp hunger spike
“Urgent actions are more than necessary to reduce consumption deficits and vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of affected households to prevent their food situation from shifting to higher levels of severe 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, the report found.
Most of the affected people are refugees living in the Ali Addeh and Holl-Holl camps where households remain largely dependent on food assistance. Nearly 70 per cent of their population, over 21,000 people, have been classified under the crisis level or above, the report said.
The Horn of Africa nation of one million people faces multiple challenges that are affecting food security, with the latest report spotlighting three main contributors that will spur the spike in hunger over the coming six months:
The scope of food assistance provided so far remains generally insufficient, the ICP report found.
As such, a large proportion of aid recipients are experiencing significant food consumption deficits and very high rates of acute malnutrition.
A network of humanitarian organizations that tracks hunger and famine conditions around the world, IPC was established during the devastating 2004 famine in Somalia to create a standardised scale for measuring food security and nutrition.
Its goal is to issue warnings to enable the prevention of widespread starvation and famine.