United Nations' officials say hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, with a 10-year high of some 48 million people facing food insecurity in the conflict-riddled region. U.N. officials said at a press conference in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, on Tuesday that food insecurity driven primarily by violence and the fallout from COVID-19 and inflation has heavily impacted Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Mauritania. U.N. officials said that for the first time, some 45,000 people in the Sahel region are on the brink of starvation, one step away from famine. The officials say the vast majority facing catastrophic levels of hunger in the arid expanse below the Sahara Desert are in Burkina Faso.