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WFP Warns of 'Unprecedented' Food Emergency in Burkina Faso

Lisa Schlein

   GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - The World Food Program warns that millions of
   people in Burkina Faso are facing what it calls an unprecedented
   humanitarian emergency because of growing hunger, instability and
   displacement.

   Fighting in Burkina Faso has intensified over the past six months,
   raising intercommunal tensions. Attacks, killings and targeted
   kidnappings by different armed groups have increased.

   The United Nations reports escalating fighting, some fueled by ethnic
   and religious beliefs, has forced more than 237,000 people to flee
   their homes. The insecurity and large-scale displacement, it says, has
   led to the closure of dozens of health centers and thousands of
   schools, depriving nearly 330,000 children of an education.

   In addition, hundreds of thousands of people are facing severe food
   shortages. World Food Program spokesman, Herve Verhoosel, told VOA that
   hunger is particularly high during the so-called lean season. This, he
   explains, is the period between June and September when food stocks are
   particularly low before the next harvest.

   "People have the problem to find food. Sometimes a problem of access.
   Then because of the security issues they cannot always access to
   markets or to go to work in the farms for example. That is why the
   combination of those two problems are giving the result that we have
   now. People are undernourished and we need support, and urgent support,
   in fact for food assistance," he said.

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