Hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, says UN
United Nations' officials say hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, with a 10-year high of some 48 million people facing food insecurity in the conflict-riddled region DAKAR, Senegal -- Hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, with some 48 million people, a 10-year-high, facing food insecurity in the conflict-riddled region, the United Nations warned Tuesday. Driven primarily by violence as well as the economic fallout from COVID-19 and inflation, food insecurity has heavily impacted Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Mauritania, U.N. officials said at a press conference in Senegal’s capital, Dakar. U.N. officials said that for the first time, some 45,000 people in the Sahel region, the arid expanse below the Sahara Desert, are on the brink of starvation, one step away from famine. The vast majority facing catastrophic levels of hunger, 42,000, are in Burkina Faso, the officials reported. “The situation is worrying," said Ann Defraye, a re...