UN official announces over 100 million at risk of starvation worldwide

Humanitarian aid isn't enough to keep people from starving.

Dominique Burgeon, a United Nations official, made a devastating announcement that will impact the entire world.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Burgeon told the Reuters over 100 million people worldwide are at risk of starvation.

Countries such as Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen are most at-risk as they face severe drought, which has made food production difficult if not impossible.

"Humanitarian assistance has kept many people alive so far but their food security situation has continued to deteriorate," Burgeon explained. He called for a greater investment in helping people farm crops and raise livestock.

"We come with aeroplanes, we provide food assistance and we manage to keep them alive but we do not invest enough in the livelihood of these people," he stated. "We avoid them falling into famine but we are not good at taking them off the cliff, away from food insecurity."

The fault isn't entirely the lack of humanitarian aid.

Nigeria has been under attack by Boko Haram, displacing roughly 1.8 million people who were forced to leave their farmlands behind. Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen have been at war, with two counties of South Sudan with famines formally declared.

A drought in East Africa left millions impoverished and collapsed the agricultural economy.

Burgeon, who works with the emergency division at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) explained FAO raised less than a third of the $20 million it requires to support the nearly two million people who will start planting in Nigeria within the next two weeks.

"If you don't support those who want to return to their area to crop then you have to agree that you will have to provide massive aid assistance at least until the harvest in 2018, which is unbearable," Burgeon stated.

He continued to say the lack of funds make feeding the hungry extremely difficult. "A lot is going to food assistance and barely anything is going to help farmers who have decided to stay on their land. What we need to do is help them stay and crop their land and be there for the future. To survive is not enough."

Joyce Luma, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, claims the crises in countries at war and victimized by local terror groups suffer a "man-made" famine.

"There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security," she stated.

Pope Francis has also called for help.

For years the Pontiff brought attention to those who are hungry. He once said, "all people enjoy the right to food" and called for the faithful to pray for those unable to enjoy this basic right.

Today, the people in third-world, broken and at-war countries still need our prayers, financial help and government change. Please pray for change and an influx of faith for those at risk of starvation.

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