U.N. official warns millions at risk of starvation in African Sahel

"Millions of people in Africa's turbulent Sahel region are on the brink of starvation due to drought and conflict, the United Nations said on Wednesday, and aid response plans are less than 40 percent funded ahead of an expected crisis peak," Reuters reports (3/29). Following a week-long trip to Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, John Ging, director of operations at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said, "This is already an appalling crisis in terms of the scale and degree of human suffering and it will get worse unless the response plans are properly funded. ... It's a matter of life or death for millions who are on the brink," according to the U.N. News Centre. "More than 15 million people in the Sahel are directly affected by worsening food shortages and malnutrition brought on by the ongoing drought, which has been compounded by conflict and insecurity," the news service writes, noting that Ging added, "More than 200,000 children died of malnutrition last year and over one million are threatened with severe acute malnutrition right now" (3/28).