Nearly one billion people in developing countries are threatened by hunger due to rising food prices, according to a report by the British humanitarian organization Oxfam. Currently, around 967 million people suffer from malnutrition, Oxfam emphasizes.
The sharp increase in the prices of staple food items, such as rice and grains, has pushed an additional 119 million people to the brink of hunger this year, the organization adds in a report published on the occasion of World Food Day, which the UN organizes on Thursday. Barbara Stocking, the chief executive of Oxfam, stated that the rise in food prices has "decimated" populations in some countries, citing the example of a 300 percent increase in flour prices in Guatemala and the doubling of flour and rice prices in Cambodia and the Philippines last year. "Innocent lives are being destroyed as they are exposed to market instability," she assessed. "Add to that the financial crisis and things could be much worse," warns Jonathan Mitchell, director of the humanitarian organization CARE International. (H)
