Some 15.5 million people, almost a third of the population of Colombia, suffer from moderate and severe food insecurity due to rising inflationpoverty, unemployment and armed conflict, a report by the United Nations World Food Program revealed on Thursday.
Research carried out between June and November of last year established that 13.4 million people face moderate food insecurity in Colombia, while 2.1 million face severe food insecurity.
Food insecurity refers to the insufficient consumption of food in a transitory, acute, seasonal or chronic way with serious effects on the health and development of people, especially children.
“Factors like the COVID-19 pandemic, job loss, difficulties in accessing land, rising food prices, climate change-related disasters and more recently the shortage of inputs due to the crisis in Ukraine have led households to a high level of economic vulnerability,” the report said.
“The link between food security and conflict is also clear. Half of the households that have been victims of the armed conflict suffer from food insecurity,” the study said.
Approximately half of households have insufficient food consumption with most eating fewer than three meals a day and at least one in four having a poor or borderline diet, meaning they are heavily dependent on grains and cereals with a low dietary diversity, according to the report.
The study confirmed that the highest concentration of food insecurity is recorded on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, regions impacted by the armed conflict and natural disasters, although in absolute terms the largest number of people with hunger or difficulties living is concentrated in urban areas. access to food.
Colombia, a country of 50 million inhabitants that exports oil, coal, coffee and flowers, registered in 2022 an inflation of 13.12% and an average national unemployment of 11.2%, to which were added thousands of victims of floods in several regions of the country due to excessive rainfall due to the La Niña climate phenomenon.
The country is still mired in a violent armed conflict of almost six decades that has left some 450,000 dead and in which the State Armed Forces face leftist guerrillas and criminal gangs that fight among themselves for control of drug trafficking.
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