Dramatic Increase Seen in Number of Hungry Congolese

Forty million more people worldwide routinely go hungry this year compared to last, and well over half of them are from the DRC.

According to this new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, rising food prices and growing insecurity account for the increase. And yet more are likely to be tipped into hunger and poverty as a consequence of the financial crisis, the report says.

About the Congo, the report says:

In sub-Saharan Africa, one in three people -- or 236 million (2007) -- are chronically hungry, the highest proportion of undernourished people in a region, the report says. Most of the increase in the number of the hungry came in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where persistent conflicts contributed to taking the proportion of undernourished people from 29 percent to 76 percent.

With its population of 60 million or so, that means that over 25 million --or nearly 60 percent -- of the world's newly hungry come from the DRC.