Assistant Executive Director of the World Food Programme Matthew Hollingworth said the crisis is not a distant warning and is deepening quickly after returning from Somalia, where millions are being pushed toward the brink of famine, according to news.un.org.

He reported that nearly six million people – roughly one in three Somalis – now face acute hunger, with two million already experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity and about 1.9 million children acutely malnourished, according to news.un.org.

Hollingworth added that the situation is being intensified by global economic shocks linked to instability in and around the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East crisis; food prices in some areas have risen by as much as 70 percent and fuel prices by 150 percent, driving up the cost of transporting aid and basic goods, according to news.un.org.

Across Africa’s Sahel region, the humanitarian crisis has expanded considerably over the past few years, driven largely by a surge of violence, particularly in the Central Sahel, according to allafrica.

The United Nations has described the Sahel crisis as having largely faded from the headlines since its wake in 2012; millions of people across the Sahel are in dire need of assistance, with civilian displacement, climate shocks and widespread hunger rapidly spilling across borders, according to allafrica.