UN says 34 countries have not enough food for its people

El Niño has drastically reduced prospects for 2016 crop production in many countries in southern Africa.

Conflicts in Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Central African Republic have taken a heavy toll on agricultural production, worsening the humanitarian crisis in those countries.

United Nations: Thirty-four countries almost 80 percent of them in Africa do not have enough food for their people because of conflict, drought and floods, according to a UN report.

The Crop Prospects Food and Agriculture Organization said yesterday food situation and conflict in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and the Central African Republic have taken a heavy toll on agricultural production, worsening the humanitarian crisis in those countries. And the impact of these conflicts extends to neighboring countries hosting refugees, strain on food resources in those countries, he said.

Congo not only deals with nearly 100,000 refugees from the Central African Republic, but the conflict in the east, where an estimated 1.5 million people are displaced and flooding associated with El Niño, which has affected nearly half a million people , according to the report.

FAO said the drought associated with the El Niño phenomenon has "drastically reduced" 2016 outlook for crop production in southern Africa. It was said that the dry conditions linked to El Niño can also affect the planting of crops in the main growing season in parts of Central America and the Caribbean, for the third consecutive year.

Dry conditions have also been reduced crop prospects this year in Morocco and Algeria, according to the report. FAO also warned that drought and floods in North Korea in 2015 "dramatically reduced" the production of food crops in the first and main growing seasons.

"With a reduced 2015 harvest, the situation of food security is likely to deteriorate compared to the situation in previous years, estimated consumption rates of dubious food or poor," said the report.

The number of countries requiring external food assistance increased from 33 in December, after the addition of Swaziland, where drought conditions associated with El Niño have been drastically reduced 2016 production prospects for cereal crops.

Other countries in the shortage list FAO food faces are Zimbabwe, Niger, Liberia, Guinea, Ethiopia,  Kenya, Congo, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Republic of Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Nepal.