A man wearing a face mask takes selfies with the background of a logo of Web Summit in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 30, 2020. Web Summit, one of the world's largest technology, innovation and entrepreneurship events, will be held entirely online this year from December 2 to 4 in Lisbon due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Petro Fiuza/Xinhua)

The United Nations (UN) said Tuesday that $35 billion would be needed for aid in 2021, as the pandemic leaves tens of millions more people in crisis, and with the risk of multiple famines looming.

The world body's annual Global Humanitarian Overview estimated that 235 million people worldwide will need some form of emergency assistance in 2021 - a staggering 40 percent increase in the past year.

"The increase arises almost entirely because of COVID-19," UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said.

In 2021, one in 33 people worldwide will be in need of aid, the report found, stressing that if all of them lived in one country, it would be the world's fifth largest nation.

The annual appeal by UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations usually presents a depressing picture of soaring needs brought on by conflicts, displacement, natural disasters and climate change.

But now, it warned, the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately hit those "already living on a knife's edge." 

"The picture we are presenting is the bleakest and darkest perspective on humanitarian need in the period ahead that we have ever set out," Lowcock said. 

The money requested in the appeal would be enough to help 160 million of the most vulnerable people across 56 countries, the UN said.

For the first time since the 1990s, extreme poverty is set to rise, life expectancy will fall and the annual death toll from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria could potentially double.

AFP