The United Nations has declared a famine in parts of South Sudan, the first to be announced anywhere in the world in six years. There have also been warnings of famine in north-east Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. Why are there still famines and what can be done about it?
100,000 people are facing starvation in South Sudan and a further 1 million there are classified as being on the brink of famine. This is the most acute of the present food emergencies. It is also the most widespread nationally. Overall, says the UN, 4.9 million people - or 40% of South Sudan's population - are "in need of urgent food, agriculture and nutrition assistance".
"Many families have exhausted every means they have to survive," says the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization representative in South Sudan, Serge Tissot.
The basic cause of the famine is conflict. The country has now been at war since 2013 and more than 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
As World Food Programme country director Joyce Luma says: "This famine is man-made."
"The people are predominantly farmers and war has disrupted agriculture. They've lost their livestock, even their farming tools. For months there has been a total reliance on whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch," says Mr Tissot.
Crop production has been severely curtailed by the conflict, even in previously stable and fertile areas, as a long-running dispute among political leaders has escalated into a violent competition for power and resources among different ethnic groups.
As crop production has fallen and livestock have died, so inflation has soared (by up to 800% year-on-year, says the UN) causing massive price rises for basic foodstuffs.
This economic collapse would not have happened without war.
The UN considers famine a technical term, to be used sparingly. The formal
means people there have already started dying of hunger.
More specifically, famine can be declared only when certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met.
:
- at least 20% of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope;
- acute malnutrition rates exceed 30%;
- and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons.
Other factors that may be considered include large-scale displacement, widespread destitution, disease outbreaks and social collapse.
The declaration of a famine carries no binding obligations on