U.N. official sounds famine alarm in Horn of Africa

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Wealthy countries must come up with some $700 million in emergency aid soon or Horn of Africa countries like Ethiopia and Somalia may descend into full-scale famine, the United Nations said on Friday.

John Holmes, the top U.N. humanitarian affairs officials, said food stocks had fallen to critically low levels in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, northern Kenya and northeastern Uganda. He said Djibouti had also been hit.

One reason for the crisis in the Horn of Africa is the jump in food prices worldwide, which the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says helped push 75 million more people into the ranks of the world's hungry last year, bringing the total to 925 million.

Holmes said the situation is "even more serious than it was before because of the combined effects of drought and rising food prices and in some places conflict."

The United Nations estimates that nearly 17 million people -- 3 million of them children -- are in urgent need of food and other aid across the Horn of Africa.

"This number could even rise as the drought deepens and the hunger season continues," Holmes said. "What we need essentially is more funds, and more funds now, otherwise the situation is going to become even more catastrophic than it is today."

'NOT THE END OF THE STORY'

The estimated total need for the 17 million hungry for the rest of this year is $1.4 billion. Half of that has been raised, he said, but there remains a shortfall of $716 million.

"We may need significant funds after that period," he added. "This is not the end of the story."

Holmes was asked if it would be correct to speak of a famine in Ethiopia and Somalia.

"I don't think we're quite there in either place," he said. "We do need extra resources very quickly indeed if we're to avoid going back to famine."

More than 1 million people are believed to have died in Ethiopia's famine in 1984-85, which was caused by war and inadequate rainfall.

The number of Somalis in dire need has increased to 6.4 million from 4.6 million since the country's bad 2008 harvest, Holmes said.

Separately, another senior U.N. official told reporters that countries had provided only a fraction of the funds needed to alleviate the damage caused by skyrocketing prices for staple foods.

"The food crisis is far from over," said the official, who asked not to be identified. "Resource mobilization has been woefully inadequate."

He said some $25 billion to $40 billion in aid and investments would be needed each year to make the global agriculture sector economically viable but that only $1 billion had been raised so far.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to bring up this shortfall in bilateral meetings with world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly next week.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)