The United Nations says the number of people in need of emergency humanitarian assistance in Sri Lanka has doubled.
Warning about a worsening food crisis in Sri Lanka, the organization points out that the number of people in need of emergency aid has doubled to 3.4 million.
United Nations agencies had estimated in June that 1.7 million of the country’s 22 million people needed aid.
The UN agency in Colombo said in a joint statement that it had raised $79 million to feed the needy, but that they needed an additional $70 million because of the growing number of poor people.
The announcement states that ‘food insecurity in Sri Lanka has increased rapidly due to two consecutive seasons of poor harvest, shortage of foreign exchange and reduced domestic purchasing power’.
Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948.
Since last year, the people have had to endure skyrocketing inflation, power outages and fuel rationing.
In mid-April, Sri Lanka defaulted on $51 billion in foreign debt. A $2.9 billion bailout is in discussions with the IMF.
It also states that the country’s poverty rate in South Asia was 13.1% last year and has doubled to 25.6% this year.
