East Africa bloc says 50 million face acute food insecurity

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA and DESMOND TIRO
Associated Press

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — More than 50 million people in the wider East African region are expected to face acute food insecurity this year, a regional bloc said Friday, warning that some 300,000 in Somalia and South Sudan are projected to be under full-blown famine conditions. The assessment by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, is one of the most dire yet as United Nations agencies, humanitarian groups and others continue to raise alarm over the region’s food crisis that some say has been largely neglected as the international community focuses on the war in Ukraine. Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, is traveling in East Africa on a trip aimed at spotlighting the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa.