The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP) said the Sahel, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Haiti now join Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen remain at the highest alert level.
All hotspots at the highest level have "communities facing or projected to face starvation, or at risk of sliding towards catastrophic conditions," it said, adding that they required "the most urgent attention."
The report spotlights the risk of a spillover of the Sudan crisis, and says a likely El Nino climatic phenomenon is raising fears of climate extremes in vulnerable countries around the globe.
The "expected shift in climate patterns will have significant implications for several hotspots," the report warned.
Those include potentially "consecutive extreme climatic events hitting areas of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa," it said, along with "below-average rains in the Dry Corridor of Central America."
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