6 quotes found
"Allow me to break down the facts of hunger as they stand right now. 811 million people are chronically hungry. 283 million are in hunger crises — they are marching toward starvation. And within that, 45 million in 43 countries across the globe are in hunger emergencies — in other words, famine is knocking on their door. Places like Afghanistan. Madagascar. Myanmar. Guatemala. Ethiopia. Sudan. South Sudan. Mozambique. Niger. Syria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Haiti and on and on and on. The world has often experienced famine. But when has it ever been so widespread, in so many places, at the same time? Why? Three reasons. First, man-made conflict. Dozens of civil wars and regional conflicts are raging, and hunger has been weaponized to achieve military and political objectives. Second, climate shocks /climate change. Floods, droughts, locusts and rapidly changing weather patterns have created severe crop failures around the world. Third, COVID-19. The viral pandemic has created a secondary hunger pandemic, which is far worse than the first. Shutdowns destroyed livelihoods. Shutdowns stopped the movement of food. Shutdowns inflated prices. The net result is the poor of the world are priced out of survival. The ripple effect of COVID has been devastating on the global economy. During the pandemic, $3.7 trillion in incomes — mostly among the poor — have been wiped out, while food prices are spiking. The cost of shipping food, for example, has increased 3 – 400%. But in places of conflict and low-income countries, it is even worse. For example, in Aleppo, Syria — a war zone, where I just returned from — food is now seven times more expensive than it was 2 years ago. The combined effect of these three — conflict, climate and COVID — has created an unprecedented perfect storm."
"We strongly condemn the terrorist attacks that targeted respectively a camp of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in Kidal (Mali) and Malian soldiers in the Timbuktu region"
"It is the case of Mali whose very existence was threatened seven months ago by the barbarism of terrorism and which managed to find the strength to elect its new president."
"Mali is on the road to recovery. It is recovering its territorial integrity, is actively preparing for the presidential elections in July and, with the international donor conference in Brussels, is making progress in its development."
"There is in particular an improvement of the security conditions in the big cities of the north which were freed from jihadi groups. As proved by the visit of the French President François Hollande in Timbuktu, which was greeted with joy by the people."
"They took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army that was not able to hold them off at that moment. About five [rebel] vehicles entered the town. Now they're stationed about 200m (650ft) from the military camp but they haven't taken the camp. They've killed a few soldiers."