DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- More than 250 million people face hunger and poverty as a result of expanding deserts around the world, according to U.N. figures presented Wednesday at a conference on desertification.

Africa is one of the worst-affected regions. Almost three-quarters of its land is severely or moderately affected by drought from changing climate patterns and harmful agricultural practices, the U.N. report said.For years, scientists have warned of the drying of arable lands on the edge of existing deserts, including Africa's Sahara and China's Gobi. Deforestation, overcultivation and drought mean each year deserts expand and engulf once arable land.

The consequences in Africa have been devastating.

More than 200,000 people have died since the early 1970s as a result of starvation brought on by drought, the U.N. report said.

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Leading scientists who gathered this week in the West African nation of Senegal say evidence of the Sahara's expansion confirms their earlier predictions.

Delegates at the conference, which opened Tuesday, are debating ways to fight land degradation and reduce the affects of drought.

Senegal's President Abdou Diouf agreed with U.N. estimates that about two-fifths of the residents of the Bakel region in the northeastern part of the West African country had emigrated as a result of long-term drought.

"There are more people from the Bakel region now in France than there are in the villages they left behind," the U.N. report said.

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