Gaza experiencing world's worst food crisis: UN report

Gaza where 80 percentage of the population is currently internally displaced, has experienced the world's worst food crisis, according to a new UN report.

The "2024 Food Security and Nutrition in the World" report, jointly prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Program (WFP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and World Health Organization (WHO), painted a grim picture of global hunger and food security.

Gaza's entire population suffered from severe food insecurity primarily to the Israeli siege of the enclave. This rate represented more than half of the population in South Sudan, Yemen, and Syria, as well as nearly half in Haiti.

The report reveals that between 713 million and 757 million people worldwide were undernourished last year, with an average of 733 million facing hunger, implying that one in every 11 people struggled with hunger.

Gaza, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Haiti had the largest share of their populations facing severe food insecurity.

'Catastrophic food insecurity'

In 2023, more than 705,000 people in Burkina Faso, Gaza, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan faced "catastrophic levels" of severe food insecurity, with 576,000 of them in Gaza alone.

According to the IPC, Gaza faced the "most severe food crisis." By the end of 2023, the entire 2.2 million population of Gaza was classified as in third-stage "crisis" conditions or worse.

According to an IPC report released on March 18, more than a quarter of Gaza's population faced severe food insecurity at "catastrophic" levels. It warned that if conflicts and restrictions on humanitarian aid continue, this situation could threaten half the population (1.1 million people) by July 2024.

Approximately 13 million people in Syria and 18 million in Yemen also struggled with high levels of severe food insecurity.