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Famine: Nigeria, Burkina Faso, others to get $100m aid, says UN

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Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria, has been pencilled down as a beneficiary of a $100 million funds earmarked by the United Nations (UN) for seven countries to help them avoid coronavirus-induced famine.

The other recipients are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Yemen.

Also, Ethiopia, where fighting has broken out between the central government and the northern Tigray region, would receive one-fifth of this money, the UN stated on Tuesday.

“No one should view a slide into famine as an inevitable side effect of this pandemic,” said Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs.

“If it happens it is because the world has allowed it to happen. Famine can be prevented. But we have to act in time to make a difference,” Lowcock said in a statement.

“Right now, more money for the aid operation is the quickest and most efficient way to support famine-prevention efforts.”

On a planet where there is more than enough food for everyone, Lowcock wrote, “famines result in agonizing and humiliating deaths. They fuel conflict and war.”

(AFP)

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