EU gives additional 1.2 million euros to address food crisis in Myanmar

By Admin 01 Nov 2024

DMG Newsroom
1 November 2024, Mrauk-U

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Thursday that the European Union (EU) has contributed 1.2 million euros (US$1.3 million) to the WFP to bolster its efforts to address food insecurity in Myanmar.

The country has been suffering from a food crisis driven by ongoing armed conflict, climate change and rising inflation, the WFP noted.

The funding will provide emergency food assistance for people affected by "devastating" floods that have impacted nearly 1 million people and damaged 1 million acres of farmland, the WFP added.

"The humanitarian situation in Myanmar is alarming," Luc Verna, who oversees EU humanitarian programmes in Myanmar, was quoted as saying.

"The ongoing conflict continues to impact new areas, and is compounded by recurrent natural hazards that put an additional strain on the civilian population, whose coping capacities are already stretched to breaking point," he added. "A quarter of the population in Myanmar don't have enough food. The European Union remains committed to supporting the most vulnerable people and communities in this increasingly dire situation."

Currently, one in four Myanmar people - 13.3 million - are food insecure, with 2.7 million facing emergency levels of food insecurity, the WFP said. Additionally, the cost of food staples has increased by 50 percent compared with last year. Meanwhile, about 3.4 million people are internally displaced in Myanmar, up from 300,000 just three years ago.

"Food insecurity has never been this severe in Myanmar's recent history with more and more people facing multiple shocks," said Paolo Mattei, the WFP representative in Myanmar.

The latest contribution brings the total funding from the EU this year to 7.2 million euros (US$8 million), according to the WFP.

Myanmar has been in a state of active chaos since the military seized power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Millions of people displaced by the fighting are going hungry while recent floods are expected to affect the rice harvest, further exacerbating food security concerns.