The number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean has risen by 30 percent since 2019.
59 million people across the region currently are not getting enough to eat, an increase of 13.8 million people in just one year.
More than nine percent of people across Latin America and the Caribbean are going hungry.
Along with the people who are going hungry in absolute terms, four out of every 10 people in Latin America and the Caribbean – 267 million people – experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020, said the UN report. That is 60 million more people than in 2019.
In 2020, 41.8 percent of women in the region experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, compared with more than 32 percent of men.
A coalition of United Nations agencies called the situation “critical”.
“We must say it loud and clear: Latin America and the Caribbean is facing a critical situation in terms of food security,” Julio Berdegue, a regional representative with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said. “There has been an almost 79 percent hike in the number of people living in hunger from 2014 to 2020.”
The coronavirus pandemic has “exacerbated the situation”, added Rossana Polastri, regional director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN’s agricultural bank.
In Brazil, the region’s largest and most populous country, some 19 million people have gone hungry during the pandemic, according to a study published earlier this year, while nearly 117 million – more than half the country’s population – live with some level of food insecurity.
Globally, 11 people die from hunger every minute, according to a July report from Oxfam, which found the number of people facing famine-like conditions has increased by six times over the past year.
Hunger increased by 30 percent in Latin America since 2019: UN | Food News | Al Jazeera
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