Aid group warns:

One person is likely to die of hunger every 36 seconds between now and the end of the year in drought-ravaged East Africa as the worst-hit areas hurtle toward famine, an international humanitarian agency warned on Friday.

Iran PressEurope: In a statement, Oxfam International said that the situation in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya is “deteriorating fast.”

“In Somalia, it is the worst hunger crisis in living memory, with the number of people experiencing acute hunger already surpassing the number affected in the famine of 2011, when more than a quarter of a million people died. Almost one in six people in Somalia are now facing extreme hunger,” the statement said.

“Large parts of the region have suffered four failed rainy seasons – with a fifth likely to unfold over the next three months – as climate change has decimated crops and forced pastoralists to abandon their traditional way of life,” it added.

Oxfam said the crisis had been exacerbated in many places by conflict, the fallout from COVID-19, and by rising food prices due in part to the war in Ukraine.

Oxfam data suggests that the rate at which people in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya are dying of hunger has increased since May when it estimated that a person was dying every 48 seconds and dangerous delays in providing aid to millions on the brink of starvation, the statement said.

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