Covid-19: Africa could slide into severe hunger crises as lockdowns continue

Rowdy scenes of people scrambling for food in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos is now a new normal. The federal government and dozens of humanitarian organizations distribute food to ease the pains of the lockdown imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I have to struggle in the crowd because there is no food at home and I need to get food for my daughter, my mum, my sister and her children,” Folashade Samuel, a Lagos slum dweller, tells DW.

Read more:World hunger continues to rise due to conflict, climate change, says UN report

Samuel is among a growing number of desperate Nigerians risking stampedes to collect free food supplies. The single mother and her sister carry their babies on their backs to get more, but sometimes have to come home empty-handed.

“We were scrambling for food when my sister with a young baby on her back was pushed away, and she had to give up. The situation is a very, very tough. It is very dangerous to scramble for food because you can fall and get trampled on,” she says.

The Nigerian government claims its system is robust and can cater for vulnerable people. But the West African regional body ECOWAS warned on Tuesday that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic could “increase the number of people at risk of food insecurity and malnutrition from 17 million to 50 million people between June and August 2020.”

Price hikes, no farming or cattle grazing

Most African countries in lockdowns

With 24,397 cases recorded in Africa as of April 21, the COVID-19 outbreak means an additional burden for many people, according to eight non-governmental organizations, including Oxfam.

“In Burkina Faso, for example, which is facing an unprecedented security crisis, more than 800,000 people are currently internally displaced and suffer from a lack of food supply,” Oxfam’s communication officer Claire Le Prive, tells DW’s French Service. “The response today is not enough in the face of exploding needs. The coronavirus is worsening an already very difficult situation.”

According to Oxfam, food prices increased dramatically due to movement restrictions and border closures. In some countries, basic foodstuffs are often unavailable, despite government efforts. Farmers could also struggle in the new planning season to get good quality seeds and fertilizers.

Read more:Cape Town — A tourist’s paradise without tourists

Nomadic herders are also restricted from reaching new grazing lands, according to the humanitarian organization. “Dairy producers claim to have lost 75% of their market due to lockdowns in certain cities. They will no longer be able to pay their employees and suppliers. Also, the possibility of taking animals to the drinking wells at night is no longer possible due to curfews. Suddenly, there are too many of them around the wells during the day causing conflict,” says Le Prive on the telephone from Senegal’s capital Dakar.

A similar situation is reported in Guinea, where businesses and hotel services have been forced to close. DW’s Karim Kamara in the capital Conakry says thousands of workers have been laid off. “I have stopped working, my wife is also not working, there is nothing going on now, even what to eat is not there,” Ismail Cisse tells DW.

“My child is crying because she wants to eat but there is no food. I swear I don’t even have 10,000 francs ($1,€0.9 cents) on me. The virus has weakened us, really weakened us,” says the father of four.

Guinea has recorded 688 Covid-19 cases so far, with six deaths. The government imposed a nighttime curfew and shutdown businesses in early March to slow the spread of the virus. To help with food shortage, President Alpha Conde distributed thirty tons of rice, but local civil society organizations say that is far from solving the country’s food crisis.  

A dark picture for Africa

People struggle to make ends meet

On Tuesday, The United Nations’ food agency WFP released its annual Global Report on Food Crises, stating that “the number of people battling acute hunger is on the rise again”. Although the research for the publication had been conducted before the outbreak began, the WFP says the pandemic “may push even more families and communities into deeper distress.”

“300 thousand people could die a day over the next three months, if we do not get the funding, if we do not get to the people, who need food and other assistance now,” Bettina Luescher, WFP spokesperson, tells DW.

According to the report, at least 20% of the African continent’s 1.2 billion population are already undernourished. This is the highest percentage in the world. Widespread poverty, reliance on imported food and price hikes under the COVID-19 lockdowns may push many into severe hunger, if African governments do not act quickly.

The report paints a darker picture of a continent already concerned by numerous crises. “Many people in Africa are suffering through wars and conflicts. There are sufferings in some place from droughts, and in other places from floods and the desert locust plague has been hitting eastern Africa. On top of that, comes the coronavirus,” Luescher says.

Also, millions of traders in the informal sector, which accounts for 85% of employment across the continent, were forced under new restrictions to stay home with no means of making ends meet.

In Kenya, desperate residents in the city’s biggest slum Kibera rushed to a food distribution on Sunday by opposition leader Raila Odinga. The stampede prompted the government to ban any direct donations.

“Food is more important than corona,” Kennedy Odede, whose charity, Shining Hope for Communities works in Kibera, tells the news agency Reuters. “The government must see how people are desperate – they will risk their life for food.”

In South Africa, the government is distributing food to 54,000 people deemed vulnerable due to a nationwide lockdown.

A severe hunger crisis could be averted if donor countries provide $1.5 billion, according to WFP. “It’s not new money, that’s money they were planning on giving us,” says WFP’s Luescher. “They have to give it now, so we can requisition food for three months.”

Locusts rampage

The humanitarian organizations also warn that a second wave of the ongoing desert locust in east and southern Africa could destroy food crops twenty times more than the previous one. Billions of eggs of the tiny creatures have already hatched and the juvenile animals could be more voracious than their parents.  

Read  more:Next East Africa locust swarms airborne in 3 to 4 weeks, UN warns

A flock of desert locust contains several millions and on a single day could feed on the food of 2,500 people. In the first wave a few months ago, the locust plague left hundreds of thousands of hectares of arable and pasture land destroyed.

Back in Nigeria, many are flouting government’s lockdown order and taking to the streets to sell small items or beg for food. “Since this morning I have not eaten, and if I cannot find anything to eat in the afternoon, I will have to beg in the evening, because I have to survive,” Lagos resident, Benjamin Jeje, tells DW.

Many Nigerians have had run-ins with security personnel who are enforcing the nationwide lockdown, leading to nine deaths. But this does not prevent Jeje from leaving his home to fend for his family. “I have to survive, we are running away from the virus, but lack of food must not kill us, we must not go hungry,” Jeje says.

Sam Olukoya in Lagos, Nigeria and Karim Kamara in Conakry, Guinea contributed to this reporting.      
 

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-africa-could-slide-into-severe-hunger-crises-as-lockdowns-continue/a-53212565?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf