WFP News Video: WFP Warns Unprecedented Drought and Floods Causing Surge in Climate Related Hunger

Shot: 9-21May2024

Afghanistan, Zambia, Italy, DRCongo

TRT: 4:00

:00-:26

Afghanistan Floods: Children pulled from floods

Unusually high rainfall, after a dry winter which has left the ground too hard to absorb water, led to massive floods that started in March this year. This was further compounded by unseasonably warm temperatures that melted snowpack cover into rivers, sweeping through entire villages, burying them under mud. Research conducted by WFP across the country shows increasingly erratic weather patterns exacerbated by the worsening climate crisis will significantly impact the ability of communities to feed themselves.  

Shot: 10May24

Baghlan, Afghanistan

:26-1:03

Afghanistan Floods: Digging out from the floods.

Communities like Laqaiha dig out from the floods that struck northeast Afghanistan in the past two weeks impacting more than 80,000 people and killing 180 people.

Shot:18May24

Laqaiha, Afghanistan

1:03-1:19

Afghanistan Floods: WFP Response

Within hours of the latest floods, WFP provided affected people with fortified biscuits and children with nutritional supplements. Working with local bakeries, WFP then distributed bread to communities most hard hit. By the end of last week, WFP started giving food rations to people in the affected districts, and providing cash assistance where markets were still functional. 

Shot:18May24               

Laqaiha, Afghanistan

1:19-1:40

Afghanistan Floods: SOT Rashmin (Pashtun):

Rashmin and her family were refugees living in Pakistan until they were expelled 7 months ago. Her husband died 3 months ago leaving her with a disabled son to take care of. Now she has been displaced again.

“Our neighbors yelled when floods came. We all went out and flood has destroyed our homes, everything, nothing remained for us. People said that floods will come again, and we all slept outside or our relative homes.”

Shot:18May24

Laqaiha, Afghanistan

1:40-2:13

Zambia Drought: Farmer walks through his dried out cornfield.

In southern Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have declared national emergencies due to drought, nearly five million people in the worst-affected countries need assistance.

Shot: 18May24

Susu Village, Zambia

2:13-2:42

SOT Gernot Laganda, WFP Director of Climate and Resilience(English):

“Out of the three big drivers of hunger; conflicts, economic shocks, climate extremes, the climate dimension is the one that can be most reliably predicted and that also goes for the El Nino related droughts and floods. So we have what it takes to forecast these damaging events. We have we it  takes to protect lives before they need saving what we need to do is to make these systems and processes accessible and available also in fragile context where people are usually disconnected from this services.“

Shot:22May24

Rome, Italy

2:42-4:00

DR Congo Flooding: 

Heavier rainfall than usual during the rainy season, prompted by climate change, has forced rivers and lakes to overflow, swallowing towns, villages and roads on the shores. With farmlands swept away, crops destroyed, and roads cut off from regular trade routes, food is scarce, and rapidly becoming more expensive, and hunger is setting in for the people living in flood-affected areas. Over one million people are estimated to be impacted by flooding across the country and WFP is responding with food assistance in some of the worst affected areas.

Shot: 9May24

Kalemie, Tanganyika Province, DR Congoa