Pandemic puts 86mln children at hunger scarcity

Foreign Desk Report

NEW YORK: The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could push as many as 86 million more children into poverty by the end of 2020, a joint study by Save the Children and UNICEF showed. That would bring the total number of children affected by poverty worldwide to 672 million, an increase of 15 percent over last year, the two aid agencies said.
Nearly two-thirds of those children overall live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. But the pandemic-driven increase is expected to occur mainly in Europe and Central Asia, which is based on World Bank and International Monetary Fund projections.