In every five Mauritanian citizens, one is facing food insecurity emanating from poor harvests and hiked prices, in reference to a Monday report by the World Food Program (WFP).
Over 650,000 residents of the West African desert country out of the total 3.5 million, live in similar conditions to those of December 2008, during the global food crisis, the UN agency reported, while releasing the findings of a study.
The post harvest research which was conducted in December and January found out that the insolvent Sahel country, nearly the size of Egypt, has two-thirds of its land as dessert.
The country experience chronic food shortages because it agricultural sector suffers “structural deficient” that under normal circumstances, can only support 30% of its current population, according to the study. Mauritania has being identified by The UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as one of the nine African countries that is at the risk of malnutrition and famine. Other African countries falling under this category include Cameroon, Mali, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Senegal.
