Hunger soars in CAR as 2.5 million face food shortages

Half the population in Central African Republic are going hungry every day, double the number a year ago, U.N. officials said as they called for help to prevent the “dire” food situation deteriorating further. Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one million people from their homes has disrupted harvests and sent food […]

Half the population in Central African Republic are going hungry every day, double the number a year ago, U.N. officials said as they called for help to prevent the “dire” food situation deteriorating further.
Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one million people from their homes has disrupted harvests and sent food prices soaring in the volatile country.
“It is serious. The situation is worse than last year,” World Food Program (WFP) country director Bienvenu Djossa said in a phone interview from Bangui.
Djossa said families are so short of food that children receiving school meals under the WFP’s emergency program put part of their serving in a plastic bag to take home.
Nearly 2.5 million people now face hunger with many surviving on cheap, low-nutrient food, WFP said. Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of school and even resort to begging.