According to a report released by the United Nations on Tuesday, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Syria were among the eight nations accounting for two-thirds of the total number of people worldwide were exposed to the risk of famine.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2019 annual global report on food crises which was launched three years ago, takes stock of the countries facing the greatest difficulties.

The FAO report said African states were disproportionately affected as close to 72 million people on the continent suffered acute hunger.

The report further revealed that conflict and insecurity remained key factors, along with economic turbulence and climate-related shocks like drought and floods.

The report also highlighted the strain put on countries hosting large numbers of refugees, including neighbouring nations of war-torn Syria as well as Bangladesh, which has received more than a million Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.

The FAO report said it also expected the number of displaced people to increase if the political and economic crisis in Venezuela persists.

Globally, the study noted that the overall situation slightly improved in 2018 compared to 2017 when 124 million people suffered acute hunger— a drop which it partially attributed to the fact that some countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific region were less affected by weather disasters that had struck in previous years.