More than 11 million people in nine southern African nations are experiencing “emergency levels of food insecurity” because of drought and climate crisis, a joint UN-affiliated report said Thursday.

Axar.az reports citing Anadolu Agency.

UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Programme stressed the warning of the Regional Interagency Standing Committee Africa (RIASCO) that the number of people suffering crisis and emergency in the nine nations is likely to rise in coming months if humanitarian action is not implemented immediately.

In Zimbabwe, 3.58 million people are in danger. In Zambia, 2.3 million are estimated to be at crisis level or worse. In southern Angola, 1.6 million people are affected by drought with at least 562,000 in crisis or worse, according to the report.

“By September 2019, 1.6 million people in Mozambique faced difficulties in accessing food as a result of agricultural losses, internal displacement and destruction of infrastructure and livelihoods stemming from two cyclones that devastated in the country in March and April 2019. In southern Madagascar, 916,201 people are facing severe acute food insecurity,” it said.

It said southern Africa is currently “at the forefront of the climate crisis and facing the consequences of it first-hand.”

Documenting deaths in southern African states, the report said “climate shocks have exacerbated outbreaks of measles in several countries across the southern African region.”