WFP warns of “Darfur effect” on forgotten hungry people

GENEVA, Oct 15, 2004 (Xinhua) — The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned on Friday that the plight of hundreds of millions of hungry people around the world has been overshadowed by the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

WFP Executive Director James Morris emphasized his concern for the victims of Darfur, but he also stressed that for every hungry child who made world news headlines there were millions more who went unnoticed, according to a WFP press release published here.

Morris expressed his concerns when marking the occasion of World Food Day which is set on Oct. 16.

“When was the last time we read about hungry children in Azerbaijan, Guinea, Sri Lanka or Tajikistan?” he said, adding thatoccasions like World Food Day gave the 800 million chronically hungry people scattered around the globe a rare chance to be noticed, if only for a few brief moments.

The WFP is calling for a new focus on the “routine hungry”, thepeople left without enough food, not because of natural disasters or conflict, but simply because they are too poor to provide for themselves and their families, said Morris.

These people — who make up more than 90 percent of the world’s hungry — are hit even harder when high-profile emergencies take up the bulk of donor aid budgets, according to WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency.