UN warns food security worsening in conflict-hit Mid East, N. Africa

Food security in the Middle East and North Africa “is fast deteriorating” because of conflicts, the UN’s food agency said Thursday. Violence in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Sudan are leading to “a widening gap in well-being” compared with other parts of the region, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. “The level of undernourishment in the conflict countries is now six times larger than that in non-conflict countries,” it said, as cited by AFP. Yemen is suffering the worst food insecurity and malnutrition of all the conflict-hit countries in the region, followed by Syria and Sudan, according to the FAO’s report.