Rome, 13 July 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Nearly three-quarters of a billion people suffer from hunger or malnutrition worldwide, according to a report released by several UN organizations on Wednesday that cited the effects of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.

Around 735 million children and adults were affected by various forms of hunger in 2022 - almost as many as in 2021 (739 million) and significantly more than before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, the figure was 613 million.

Since then, the pandemic and the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine have worsened the crisis. The war, for instance, has severely disrupted Ukraine's grain production and exports.

The United Nations had set the goal in 2015 of "creating a world free of hunger by 2030." Given the current trend, this is no longer feasible, the report on food security and nutrition concludes.

The report was prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the report's foreword, the heads of the five organizations now write that 600 million people are still expected to suffer from hunger in 2030, which is about "119 million more than in a scenario in which neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine had occurred."

There are other sobering figures inside: 2.4 billion people, or almost 30% of the world's population, had no permanent access to food last year. In addition, 3.1 billion people (42% of the world's population) are reported to have been unable to afford healthy food in 2021. There are no figures for 2022 yet.

Photo: MIA archive