The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highlighted the need to support millions facing starvation and disease in the Horn of Africa.

WHO director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said this while speaking at a news conference from WHO headquarters in Geneva on Wednesday. According to him, drought, conflict, climate change, and increasing prices for food, fuel, and fertiliser contribute to the lack of access to sufficient food.

The countries affected are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

“Hunger and malnutrition pose a direct threat to health, but they also weaken the body’s defences and open the door to diseases including pneumonia, measles and cholera,” he explained.

Mr Ghebreyesus said the crisis was forcing people to choose between paying for food and healthcare as many migrate in search of food, which can put them at increased risk of disease.

WHO has provided more than $16 million from an emergency fund to address needs, but more support is required. The agency is appealing for $123.7 million to be used to prevent and control outbreaks, treat malnutrition, and provide essential health services and medicines.

The WHO chief added that the drought was compounding the “man-made catastrophe” in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where war has raged for nearly two years.

Some six million people are under siege by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, he said, “sealed off from the outside world, with no telecommunications, no banking services and very limited electricity and fuel.”

As a result, they are facing multiple outbreaks of malaria, anthrax, cholera, diarrhoea and other diseases.

“This unimaginable cruelty must end. The only solution is peace,” the WHO chief said. “I can tell you that the humanitarian crisis in Tigray was more than (in) Ukraine, without any exaggeration, and I said it many months ago; maybe the reason is the colour of the skin of the people in Tigray.”

(NAN)