United Nations: 673 million people around the world suffer from “famine”

The director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for communication with Russia, Oleg Kubyakov, revealed that the international community is still unable to face the global famine crisis, pointing out that armed conflicts, natural disasters, the consequences of the Corona pandemic, and geopolitical and economic shocks have contributed to the sharp increase in food prices.

Kobyakov explained to “Nofosti” agency that the number of people suffering from hunger in the world reached between 638 and 720 million people in 2024, which is equivalent to 7.8% to 8.8% of the planet’s population, which is approximately one person out of every 11 to 12 people. He added that the average number of refugees reached 673 million people, which is a decrease of 15 million compared to the year 2023 and 22 million compared to the year 2022.

He pointed out that the preliminary estimates for the year 2025 indicate that about 735 million people, or 9.1% of the world’s population, will suffer from a lack of food necessary to meet their basic needs and live a healthy and active life, explaining that this reflects a relative decrease in the light of global population growth, but it remains an indication of the delay in researching international goals to combat hunger.

Kobyakov confirmed that the current trends indicate that about 512 million people will continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition by the year 2030, and about 60% of them will be in Africa. He stressed the necessity of intensifying international cooperation and increasing the funding allocated to agriculture and the basic structure of agricultural food chains to face the crisis.

Kobyakov pointed out that the countries most vulnerable to the food crisis include Palestine (Gaza region), Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali, pointing out that the residents of these countries suffer from high levels of food insecurity, while there are about one million people in Gaza who are at risk of dying of hunger, according to the Palestinian Central Statistics Office, which estimated the population of the Gaza Strip in 2024 to be 2.13 million people.