Tag Archives: Food Shortage

U.S. backed forces appeal for aid for hundreds fleeing IS

Fighters of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) carry their weapons as they walk in the western rural area of Manbij, in Aleppo

By Rodi Said and Lisa Barrington

NEAR MANBIJ, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – – U.S.-backed forces waging an offensive against the Islamic State-held city of Manbij in northern Syria appealed for international assistance for those fleeing the fighting on Tuesday as the forces tightened their encirclement of the city.

The SDF push comes at the same time as other enemies of Islamic State, including the governments of Syria and Iraq, also launched major offensives on other fronts, in what amounts to the most sustained pressure on the militants since they proclaimed their caliphate in 2014.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance launched the advance two weeks ago to seize Islamic State’s last territory on the Syria-Turkey border and cut the self-declared caliphate off from the world.

“In the areas we control we have tried to take care of the needs of the internally displaced persons. But we are not able to cover their needs,” Sharfan Darwish of the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council told Reuters in Beirut by telephone.

“The international community must turn their attention to the people which have been liberated from Daesh (Islamic State),” he said, adding that there were no international humanitarian organizations working in the area.

Darwish said the Manbij civil council was bringing supplies from the northern, Syrian YPG militia-controlled city of Kobani to displaced persons, but this was not enough.

The SDF is a U.S.-backed group formed last year which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and Arab fighters.

They are one of a number of sides fighting in Syria’s complex civil war now in its sixth year. The conflict pits rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian government forces and some rebel groups are also fighting separate battles against Islamic State. The SDF has largely avoided fighting against government forces and focuses on fighting Islamic State.

BRAVING SNIPER FIRE

Around 1,100 people have already fled Islamic State-held Manbij this week into SDF-held territory, braving Islamic State sniper fire on the city’s edges, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Many who had fled the city told Reuters that Islamic State fighters were trying to prevent people leaving. One person told Reuters Islamic State was arresting people suspected of collaborating with the SDF.

Having seized control of the last route into Manbij on Friday, the SDF has yet to enter the town.

“We are closing in on Manbij,” Darwish said, adding that fighting continues on the city’s outskirts.

The Observatory said the SDF has taken about 105 villages and farms around Manbij since the start of the operation.

Since the start of the offensive on May 31, 49 civilians have died as a result of the U.S.-led coalition air strikes in and around Manbij and 19 civilians had been killed by Islamic State, the Observatory said.

It also said at least 246 Islamic State fighters and 29 SDF fighters have been killed.

Syrian government and allied forces are trying to advance against the Islamic State south-west of their de facto capital in Syria, Raqqa. Fighting on Monday between Ithriya and al Tabqa killed 11 government and 17 Islamic State, the Observatory said.

Syrian state media broadcast pictures of bloodied bodies lying in the desert sand which it said showed 16 Islamic State fighters killed by government and allied forces in the fighting.

Syrian government and allied forces have been supported by Russian air power since September last year, an intervention which helped turn the tide of the war in Assad’s favor.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Rodi Said near Manbij, Syria, editing by Peter Millership)

Iraq makes arrests over reports of Sunni executed in Falluja

A military vehicle of the Iraqi security forces is seen next to an Iraqi flag in Falluja

By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq said on Monday it had made arrests as it investigates allegations that Shi’ite militiamen helping the army retake Falluja had executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men fleeing the city held by Islamic State.

Iraqi authorities “are following up on the violations and a number of arrests have been made,” government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said after a regional governor said 49 Sunni men had been executed after surrendering to a Shi’ite faction.

Sohaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Falluja is located, said on Sunday that 643 men had gone missing between June 3 and June 5, and “all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means.”

The participation of militias in the battle of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings.

Iraq’s Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Falluja. He pledged on Twitter to prosecute any serviceman involved in such acts.

“Harassment of IDPs (internally displaced persons) is a betrayal of the sacrifices of our brave forces’ liberation operations to expel Daesh (Islamic State) from Iraq,” he said.

Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi’ite-led governments that followed.

In the north of the country, troops fought with Islamic State militants in the village of Haj Ali for the second day in a row, an Iraqi officer taking part said.

Haj Ali is near the Qayyara, a town under Islamic State control which has an airfield that Baghdad’s forces seek to use as a staging ground for a future offensive on Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north.

STRICT ORDERS

“Strict orders were issued to protect the civilians,” government spokesman Hadithi said, adding that these instructions were also given to the Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces, the coalition of mostly Shi’ite militias backed by Iran which are involved in the fighting.

The United Nations said last week it knew of “extremely distressing, credible reports” of men and boys being abused by armed groups working with security forces after fleeing Falluja.

Iraqi authorities routinely separate males aged over 15 from their families when they manage to escape Falluja, to screen them to ensure they do not pose a security risk and check if they may have been involved in war crimes.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said screening was legitimate but should not be done by paramilitary groups.

“The country must avoid further divisions or violence along sectarian lines, lest it implode completely,” he said on Monday.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said the Baghdad government was aware of the abuses.

“We know that the prime minister has come out and said that he believes that these abuses have happened and that he … has demanded accountability of any perpetrators,” Colonel Chris Garver said. “We think that is the right course of action.”

The Iraqi army launched the offensive on Falluja on May 23, with air support from the U.S.-led coalition. The United Nations has said up to 90,000 people are trapped in the city with little food or water.

Repeated phone calls to three spokesmen of the Popular Mobilisation Forces were not answered. Last week, one of them, Kareem Nuri, said past accusations of human rights violations were “politically motivated and baseless”.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Venezuela lootings, food protests leave three dead

People line up expecting to buy food outside a supermarket in Caracas

CARACAS (Reuters) – The recent wave of lootings and food riots in crisis-hit Venezuela has left three people dead in the last week, authorities and a rights group said.

The state prosecutor’s office is investigating the deaths of a 21-year-old man in eastern Sucre state on Saturday, another 21-year-old man in the Caracas slum of Petare on Thursday, and a 42-year-old woman in the western state of Tachira last Monday.

All three suffered gunshot wounds during chaotic scenes outside supermarkets, which have become a flashpoint for violence and looting amid scarcities of basics across the South American OPEC member country, according to local rights group Provea.

A policeman has been arrested over the Tachira death.

With basics such as flour and rice running short, crowds chanting “We want food!” are thronging supermarkets daily, presenting a major problem for the struggling leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro.

More than 10 incidents of looting are occurring daily, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a local monitoring group.

Venezuela’s political opposition is pursuing a recall referendum in an effort to remove the socialist Maduro from office.

Maduro, 53, won election to succeed Hugo Chavez in 2013. The government accuses its opponents of deliberately stirring up trouble and seeking a coup.

(Reporting by Sarah Dagher and Girish Gupta; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, G Crosse)

Hungry Venezuelans now smuggle Columbian food home

The Wider Image: Venezuelans shop for food in Colombia

By Alexandra Ulmer and Anggy Polanco

PUERTO SANTANDER, Colombia (Reuters) – Thousands of Venezuelans living near the border discovered years ago that smuggling heavily subsidized food into Colombia made them far more money than the meager wages from regular jobs.

But with crisis-hit Venezuela suffering drastic food shortages this year and local resale prices spiraling, some have decided to flip the business model: zipping into Colombia to buy flour, rice and even diapers for desperate shoppers back in Venezuela.

“There’s nothing left in Venezuela, what’s left is hunger. Colombia is what’s saving us,” said one 30-year-old smuggler who now rides his motor bike to shop in Colombia’s buzzing border town of Puerto Santander.

“Colombia is what is saving people,” said the smuggler, a former construction worker who asked to remain anonymous to avoid arrest. He says he keeps some food for his wife and three children but sells most of it to markets in Venezuela’s Andean border state of Tachira or in the capital, Caracas.

Leftist President Nicolas Maduro last year closed crossings into Colombia to try to end the smuggling he said was bleeding Venezuela dry.

But the about-face in smuggling routes in the last few months was clear one morning late last week when Reuters journalists saw hundreds of people streaming into Colombia to buy food, medicines, and basic hygiene products.

Dozens lined up on a bridge to plead with the military to let them through. Others drifted over in wooden boats right under the nose of Venezuela’s National Guard and army. A half-dozen said they bribed officials to cross over dirt roads, and a few swam from one leafy shore to the other.

The business is driven by Venezuela’s worsening economic crisis. Poor and middle-class people brave food lines for hours but increasingly end up empty-handed. Many are forced to skip meals and survive on mangoes and plantains, or forage through garbage.

Unruly supermarket lines have become riskier and a woman was shot dead in Tachira this week after frustrated shoppers raided warehouses.

‘CRITICAL’ SITUATION

Venezuela’s opposition is pushing to have Maduro removed via a recall referendum, saying it is the only way to avert a full-blown humanitarian crisis in the oil-rich country.

“There’s nothing in my fridge,” said Gloria, 48, who got up at 4 a.m. on a recent morning to travel to Puerto Santander to buy rice, sugar and coffee for her family of eight.

“In the last month the situation has become more critical, we can’t find anything,” she said, taking a break from carrying heavy shopping bags.

Before shoppers like Gloria began showing up, Puerto Santander was suffering a downturn as Maduro’s border crackdown and Venezuela’s scarcities had dimmed the inflow of cheap goods smuggled in from Venezuela.

To be sure, children, gangs, and even middle-class Venezuelans continued to smuggle Venezuelan gasoline – the world’s cheapest – across the murky brown rivers that mark the 2,300-km (1,400-mile) border.

But it is the reverse flow of goods that has Puerto Santander’s once-shuttered stores humming again.

Venezuelans drag bulky bags or suitcases down busy streets, shoppers with fistfuls of Venezuelan bills elbow their way to counters, and Colombians on motor bikes offer their services.

“Thanks to the fact there’s nothing in Venezuela this town has shot back to life,” said store owner Jose Armando, 42, who now sells Colombian-made products to exclusively Venezuelan customers.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Colombia’s government declined to comment.

COLOMBIAN PRODUCTS – OR NOTHING

On the other side of the border, Venezuelan shoppers are scooping up Colombian goods.

Once out of reach, many goods have become a bit cheaper than the scarce and pricey Venezuelan products hawked locally by “bachaqueros” – resellers named for an industrious leaf-carrying ant.

Rice, for instance, can be bought in Colombia for the equivalent of about 1,300 bolivars and sold in Venezuela for around 1,800 bolivars.

Venezuela’s government fixes a kilo of rice at some 120 bolivars, but on the local black market the coveted product now fetches approximately 2,000 bolivars – just $2 at the unofficial foreign exchange rate but around one-fifth of a monthly minimum wage, factoring in monthly food tickets.

For two months now, Clarissa Garcia, 37, has bought Colombian soap, flour and sugar to sell in her small stall at the market of La Fria, a leafy town a half-hour drive from the border.

“People would be dying of hunger if there weren’t Colombian products,” she said, washing tomatoes as shoppers streamed by inquiring about prices. Some grimaced at her response.

Venezuela’s poor, and those who live far from the border, have no choice but risk ever longer and more dangerous lines in front of supermarkets patrolled by National Guards soldiers where scuffles are now common.

By 7 a.m. on a recent morning in San Cristobal, the capital Tachira, some 2,000 shoppers were waiting in front of a supermarket hoping to be among the lucky few able to buy soap and flour when its doors opened.

“We can’t stand this anymore,” said Talia Carrillo, 38, who arrived the night before, slept in the line, and woke up in the morning to find others in line being robbed.

“I earn minimum wage. That doesn’t give us the base to buy expensive products. But we can’t go on like this, we’re barely finding anything.”

(Additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra in Bogota; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Kieran Murray and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Tropical fruits provide lifeline amid Venezuela Food Shortage

Iznaga holds mangoes and other tropical fruits while posing for a picture next to her house in La Fria

By Alexandra Ulmer

LA FRIA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela’s mango season is providing some relief during worsening food shortages that are forcing the poor to skip meals and sparking a rash of lootings.

Facing Soviet-style food lines for increasingly scarce products at supermarkets, more and more people are turning to the South American nation’s lush mango, coconut and papaya trees.

While children have always scampered up trees or tossed stones to knock down the juicy yellow mangoes, workers are now joining them during lunch breaks, and parents are making long poles to scoop up the high treats.

“Sometimes when there’s nothing in the fridge, I grab two mangoes,” said Juany Iznaga, 13, whose family is going without some meals since her mother lost a job at the mayor’s office.

“Mangoes help a little; they fill you up,” Iznaga added as she shared a slice with her younger sister in the fertile town of La Fria by the Colombian border.

Around the crisis-hit nation of 30 million, people are consuming more starch and less protein. Many say they cannot afford three meals a day.

So mango season is being feted as never before.

“Now we can’t throw anything away, not even the skin,” said homemaker Iris Garcia, 58, whose son plucks mangoes in the windy Caribbean peninsula of Paraguana.

“THAT’S WHAT WE HAVE”

As the recession reduces employment and inflation crushes spending power, street corners are increasingly brimming with informal vendors selling freshly picked fruit.

Josue Moreno, 19, quit his job four months ago at a bottled water plant where he made $7 a month on the black market rate and now sells coconuts under the leafy shade of a busy street in La Fria.

“This work is easier,” said Moreno as he chopped the fruit with a big knife, poked a straw into it and handed it over to a thirsty customer blasting Latin American reggaeton music from his pickup. “Coconuts take care of themselves; you don’t have to do anything.”

Still, sweet tropical fruits are no substitute for a proper diet, and protests are spreading as delivery trunks become an ever more elusive sight.

For two days, Adrian Vega has been eating crackers topped with mangoes from the tree in his backyard in the jungle state of Bolivar.

“And by the looks of it,” the 23-year-old student said, “I’ll be eating mangoes for several more days because that’s what we have.”

(Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo, German Dam in Ciudad Guayana, and Manuel Hernandez in Maracaibo; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Global standard to measure food waste aims to put more on plates

Vegetables pulled out from waste bins of an organic supermarket are pictured in Berlin

By Megan Rowling

BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A new global standard for measuring food loss and waste will help countries and companies step up efforts to store, transport and consume food more efficiently, its backers said on Monday.

Around one third of all food, by weight, is spoiled or thrown away worldwide as it moves from where it is produced to where it is eaten, costing globally up to $940 billion per year, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated.

The standard is the first set of international definitions and reporting requirements for businesses, governments and other organizations to measure and manage food loss and waste, with the aim of reducing it, its creators said.

The effort hopes to channel more food to the roughly 800 million people who are undernourished around the world, and cut emissions from the production of uneaten food, which account for about 8 percent of the total contributing to climate change.

“There’s simply no reason that so much food should be lost and wasted,” said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, which has led work on the standard.

“Now we have a powerful new tool that will help governments and businesses save money, protect resources, and ensure more people get the food they need,” he added in a statement.

Often companies, countries or cities lack information about how much, why and where food is removed from the supply chain. Definitions of food loss and waste also vary widely, making comparisons hard, according to a document on the new standard.

“It is challenging to manage what you do not measure,” it noted.

Other organizations that developed the “Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard” include the Consumer Goods Forum, the FAO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

GLOBAL FOOD-WASTE GOAL

Pascal Gréverath, Nestlé’s vice president for environmental sustainability, said the food giant had tested the standard to measure fresh milk loss in its supply chain in Pakistan, where it procures milk from over 100,000 farmers.

Thanks to refrigerated tanks in villages and cooling systems used during transportation, wastage was found to be just 1.4 percent, the new tool showed, compared with a national average of more than 15 percent.

“Since we are in direct contact with many farmers, we have many opportunities to use (the standard) to better assess the possible options to further reduce loss and waste,” Gréverath told reporters. “This we do also together with local authorities, so there are ways we can promote the protocol.”

Robert van Otterdijk, an agro-industry officer with the FAO, said his agency would introduce the standard in its work in the developing world, and see how it could be implemented to produce better data on food loss and waste.

In low-income countries, food “loss” is the bigger problem, meaning food spoiled early in the value chain during harvest or in storage, transport and processing. But in richer nations, food “waste” thrown away by shops and consumers is worse.

The backers of the standard, launched at the Global Green Growth Forum in Copenhagen, hope governments will adopt it to measure progress under the new Sustainable Development Goals. Those call for food waste to be cut in half by 2030, and for food losses to be reduced by that date.

“The logic goes that there will be a convergence in thinking and reporting… as the complexities are teased out,” said James Lomax, a food systems program officer with UNEP.

The Consumer Goods Forum, which represents more than 400 of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers from 70 countries, has adopted a resolution urging its members to reduce food waste from their operations by 50 percent by 2025, with baselines and progress to be measured using the new standard.

Mark Little, head of food waste reduction at UK-based supermarket chain Tesco, said that in Britain only a small amount of food waste occurs at the retail level, but that doesn’t mean Tesco is passing the buck.

“We have a shared responsibility for that waste,” he said. “We feel that the solution… lies in working in partnership with our farmers, our manufacturers and helping customers to reduce food waste in their own homes, as well as tackling the issue in our own operations.”

(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

‘We Want Food!’ Venezuelans cry out at protest

People run away from police (on motorcycle) during riots for food in Caracas

By Efrain Otero and Marco Bello

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan security forces fired teargas at protesters chanting “We want food!” near Caracas’ presidential palace on Thursday, the latest street violence in the crisis-hit OPEC nation.

Hundreds of angry Venezuelans heading toward Miraflores palace in downtown Caracas were met by National Guard troops and police who blocked a major road.

President Nicolas Maduro, under intense pressure over a worsening economic crisis in the South American nation of 30 million, had been scheduled to address a rally of indigenous groups nearby around the same time.

The protest spilled out of long lines at shops in the area, witnesses said, after some people tried to hijack a food truck.

“I’ve been here since eight in the morning. There’s no more food in the shops and supermarkets,” one woman told pro-opposition broadcaster Vivoplay.

“We’re hungry and tired.”

The government accused opposition politicians of inciting the chaos but said security forces had the situation under control.

Despite their country having the world’s biggest oil reserves, Venezuelans are suffering severe shortages of consumer goods ranging from milk to flour, soaring prices and a shrinking economy.

Maduro blames the fall in global oil prices and an “economic war” by his foes, whom he also accuses of seeking a coup.

“Every day, they bring out violent groups seeking violence in the streets,” he said in a speech at the indigenous rally, which went ahead near Miraflores later in the day. “And every day, the people reject them and expel them.”

Critics say Venezuela’s economic chaos is the consequence of failed socialist policies for the last 17 years, especially price and currency controls.

The opposition wants a referendum this year to recall Maduro. Protests over shortages, power cuts and crime occur daily, and looting and lynchings are on the rise.

Several local journalists said they were robbed during Thursday’s chaos in downtown Caracas.

The government’s top economic official, Miguel Perez, acknowledged the hardships Venezuelans were undergoing but promised the situation would improve.

“We know this month has been really critical. It’s been the month with the lowest supply of products. That’s why families are anxious,” he told local radio.

“We guarantee things will improve in the next few weeks.”

(Additional reporting by Daniel Kai, Corina Pons, Diego Ore and Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta; Editing by James Dalgleish; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Zimbabwe empties female prisons in struggle to feed inmates

President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace greet supporters of his ZANU (PF) party during the "One Million Man March", a show of support of Mugabe's rule in Harare

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has granted amnesty to all female prisoners except those on death row or serving life sentences, as prisons struggle to feed inmates due to lack of funding from the government.

Five prisoners died in March 2015 after being shot by police in a protest over food shortages, which turned violent as some of them attempted to break out of jail.

Mugabe announced the pardon through a government notice on Monday, without stating a reason for the move, and the release of prisoners started on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services spokeswoman Priscilla Mthembo said on Thursday there were 580 female inmates across the country’s 46 prisons, and those eligible would be set free. At the country’s top security jail in Harare, two female prisoners serving life sentences remained after the amnesty, while vetting was ongoing at other prisons.

In all, Mthembo said more than 2,000 prisoners would benefit from Mugabe’s pardon. These included all juveniles, irrespective of their crimes, as well as some men not serving time for serious crimes like murder, armed robbery, treason, rape or carjacking.

Zimbabwe’s prisons hold 20,000 inmates, more than their capacity of 17,000, causing congestion and shortages of everything from food to uniforms.

Under the constitution of the Southern African nation, Mugabe, who routinely pardons prisoners, is required to consult his cabinet on all amnesties.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Venzuela looters target chicken, flour amid worsening of shortages

A Venezuelan soldier stands guard next to people forming a line to try to buy cornmeal flour and margarine at a pharmacy in Caracas

By Anggy Polaco

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short.

Many people now get up in the dead of night to spend hours in long lines in front of supermarkets. But as more end up empty-handed and black market prices soar, plundering is rising in Venezuela, already one of the world’s most violent countries.

There is no official data, but rights group Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict reported 107 episodes of looting or attempted looting in the first quarter.

Videos of crowds breaking into shops, swarming onto trucks or fighting over products frequently make the rounds on social media, though footage is often hard to confirm.

In one of the latest incidents, several hundred people looted a truck carrying kitchen rolls, salt and shampoo after it crashed and some of its load tumbled out in volatile Tachira state on Thursday, according to a local official and witnesses.

Fifteen people were injured, including six security officials trying to restrain the crowd, said local civil protection official Luis Castrillon.

“There was a big scuffle … There were shots in the air and they fired tear gas,” said witness Manuel Cardenas, 40.

Such scenes are adding to an increasingly dire panorama in the South American oil exporter, where inflation is the highest in the world, the economy has been shrinking since early 2014, and there are frequent power and water cuts.

President Nicolas Maduro blames the crisis on the fall in global oil prices, a drought that has hit hydroelectric power generation and an “economic war” by right-wing businessmen and politicians.

But the opposition say he and his predecessor Hugo Chavez are to blame for disastrous statist economic policies.

They are pushing for a recall referendum this year to remove Maduro, 53, and trigger a new election.

In other looting incidents this week, a group of hooded motor bikers tried, also on Thursday, to steal some 650 sacks of flour as they were being delivered to a deposit in the nearby Andean state of Merida.

Security forces managed to stop the theft, but two National Guards and four policemen were injured in the melee, according to a local security official.

On Wednesday, looters in Merida broke into a state-run supermarket, stealing food, shelves and even doors after learning chicken was being stored there. An underwear store was plundered a day earlier in the same state.

Socialist Party officials have condemned the looters as criminals and smugglers seeking to make a quick buck from re-selling. Maduro has vowed a tough hand against violence and warned his enemies are plotting a “coup” akin to this week’s suspension of Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff.

Critics counter that hunger and desperation are pushing people to theft, and warn the situation will only worsen barring urgent policy changes such as an easing of strict currency and price controls that have crimped imports and production.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Kai; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Tom Brown)

South Sudan food crisis may almost double to 5.3 million

GENEVA (Reuters) -Up to 5.3 million people in South Sudan may face a severe food shortages during this year’s lean season, the U.N. World Food Program said on Monday,nearly double the number in the first three months of the year.

From January to March, 2.8 million people were classed as being in “crisis” or “emergency” food situations, with about 40,000 thought to be suffering an outright famine.

The rising hunger comes despite attempts to end more than two years of war, which started in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir sacked his first vice president Riek Machar, triggering ethnically charged violence.

Some fighting continues, but Kiir was able to name a new cabinet in late April, including former rebels and members of the opposition, after Machar returned to Juba and got back his old job.

“Internal food security analysis shows that South Sudan will face the most severe lean season in 2016 since its independence, driven by insecurity, poor harvests, and displacement in some areas of the country,” said a WFP report published on Monday.

“As many as 5.3 million people may face severe food insecurity, with particular areas of concern in the non-conflict affected states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Eastern Equatoria.”

During the 2015 lean season, which runs from March to September, about 4.6 million people were classed as severely “food insecure”, WFP said previously.

The most severe conditions are in Unity State, where a team of food security experts found a risk of “widespread catastrophe” during a visit late last year.

The United Nations says 1.69 million South Sudanese are displaced within the country and another 712,000 have fled into neighbouring countries. The U.N. humanitarian plan for South Sudan has received only 27 percent of the $1.29 billion needed.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Tom Heneghan)