A/HRC/4/30 page 20 extreme global inequality has become, with most of the world’s wealth heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia-Pacific countries, including Australia and Japan.50 People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of the world’s total wealth, while the poorer half of the world’s population owns barely 1 per cent of global wealth.51 However, in a world where the poor and hungry are getting even poorer, there are increasing numbers of people who have little choice but to leave their homes and lands in order to survive, and it is becoming more difficult to distinguish between economic migrants and refugees.52 57. If migrants are fleeing from famine, chronic hunger and deprivation, then we must call into question whether such migration is “voluntary”. Millions of people living in Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, regularly face famine and growing destitution. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world where levels of hunger have been constantly increasing since 1990. Between 1990 and 2001, the number of chronically undernourished people is estimated to have increased from 169 million to 206 million people.53 It is the developing region with the highest proportion of people living in hunger - one third of the population does not get the minimum amount of calories every day that is necessary to sustain healthy life. In the 14 poorest countries, more than 35 per cent of the population goes hungry every day, even during normal times when there is no drought or famine.54 Hunger has increased most in countries torn apart by conflict over the 1990s, including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone.54 This has been particularly severe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the number of victims of undernutrition rose from 31 to 72 per cent of the Congolese people.54 These close links between hunger and conflict are often exacerbated when food and famine have also been used as weapons of war in many African countries, against certain groups or communities.55 It is difficult to suggest that mass population movements precipitated by famine, just as by conflict, are voluntary. 58. Environmental degradation, desertification and global climate change are also exacerbating destitution and desperation, especially in the highly arid countries of Sahelian Africa (see A/61/306). In 1995 (the last time a comprehensive assessment was carried out), the United Nations estimated that there were already 25 million people forced to leave their 50 UNU-WIDER, Anthony Shorrocks, James Davies, Susanna Sandström, Edward Wolff, “The World Distribution of Household Wealth”, 2006, UNU Press, Tokyo. 51 Ibid. 52 Castles, Stephen, “Migration reform in the age of globalization”, 2004. 53 FAO, State of World Food Insecurity 2006. 54 Ibid. 55 Joanna Macrae, Anthony Zwi, “Food as an instrument of war in contemporary African famines: a review of the evidence”, Disasters, 16, No. 4, 1991.