Global food crisis set to drive record displacement levels higher, says UN

A food security crisis stoked by the Ukraine war is set to push more people to flee their homes in poorer countries, driving record levels of global displacement even higher, the head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. 

A report by the UN body showed on Thursday that some 89.3 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, abuse and violence at the end of 2021. 

Since then, millions more have fled Ukraine or been displaced within its borders, with price hikes linked to blocked grain exports set to stoke more displacement elsewhere. 

“If you have a food crisis on top of everything I have described — war, human rights, climate — it will just accelerate the trends I’ve described in this report,” Filippo Grandi told journalists this week. 

Stop excluding women from peace talks in global conflicts: UN chief

Men must stop excluding women from peace talks around the world, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Wednesday, warning that in conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the situation is actually “going backwards.” 

The UN secretary-general said the lack of female representation in such negotiations from Ukraine to Afghanistan, Myanmar and Mali shows “how enduring power imbalances and patriarchy are continuing to fail us.” 

It results in “men in power and women excluded, their rights and freedoms deliberately targeted,” he said (Agencies).