Category Archives: Hunger

Food aid failing to reach Gaza residents despite ‘catastrophic’ hunger crisis

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People vent their frustration on social media as many given just beans and biscuits to eat, and donated food is found for sale in markets

A couple of biscuits and a can of beans is all that many Palestinians in Gaza say is being given to families to live on, if they receive aid at all, and that they are finding donated items for sale in the markets.

The risk of famine is increasing every day, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which said this week that Gaza’s entire population is suffering “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”, the highest proportion of a population with acute food insecurity the monitor has ever recorded.

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Hunger crisis threatens Chad as funding for food aid falters

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World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.

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UN warns of Gaza starvation as concerns rise about safety in the south

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Israeli military expansion seen as likely alongside acute shortages of of food and water

The UN has said Gaza’s civilians face the “immediate possibility” of starvation, amid mounting concerns about Israeli plans to expand military operations in parts of the south where people have sought refuge from fighting.

Fuel shortages on Friday halted aid shipments and blacked out communications across the strip. The UN said its trucks could not move and it could not coordinate deliveries. Palestinian network operators said they could no longer power the phone and internet systems.

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Western leaders defend slow progress to end global inequality as UN summit starts

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Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals

Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.

At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.

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Haiti: 97% of households in some areas suffering from severe hunger

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Of 2,664 households interviewed in Croix-des-Bouquets and Delmas, 2,596 were usually getting one meal a day, survey found

Haiti’s hunger crisis is now so acute that 97% of households in some areas around the capital are suffering from severe hunger, according to a new survey by the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps.

Of 2,664 households interviewed in the neighbourhoods of Croix-des-Bouquets and Delmas, 2,596 were suffering from severe hunger and usually getting no more than one meal a day.

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‘Dire crisis for children’ in Sudan, aid groups warn as millions more go hungry

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Up to 17,000 more children a day lack food, Save the Children say, as global indifference to humanitarian crisis condemned as ‘racist’

The past four months of fighting in Sudan has pushed millions into food insecurity – with an additional 1.5 million children expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger by September – as aid agencies say they are struggling to reach people.

Up to 17,000 children a day have been falling into crisis levels of hunger, Save the Children warned on Tuesday. With 4 million people displaced so far, the charity said more people were facing hunger in Sudan than at any point since records there began in 2012.

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UN unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month amid ‘catastrophic’ conditions

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The World Food Programme’s Haiti response is only 16% funded with more than half of the country’s population regularly hungry

The World Food Programme (WFP) will be unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month as the UN agency has insufficient funding to meet burgeoning humanitarian needs in the embattled Caribbean nation.

Haitians grappling with dire malnutrition will have to endure the absence of vital food and financial support amid the worst hunger crisis the country has ever witnessed, the WFP announced on Monday.

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Kenya to launch biggest school meals programme in Africa

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Starting in Nairobi, the initiative aims to provide daily lunches for 4 million primary school children and to ‘eliminate the shame of hunger’

The largest school meals programme in Africa is to begin in Nairobi this August, in a drive to “eliminate the shame of hunger in [Kenya]”.

Ten new kitchens, now under construction, will provide 400,000 daily lunches for children in 225 primary schools and Early Childhood Development centres in the Kenyan capital. The programme will start on 28 August, the first day of the autumn term, and the kitchens will employ 3,500 people.

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Haiti faces ‘hunger emergency’ amid escalating gang violence and surging inflation

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Acute hunger is affecting 4.9 million Haitians, according to a UN report, which outlines the increased need for humanitarian aid

Haitians are increasingly desperate for humanitarian aid as gang violence engulfing the country has left nearly half the population regularly going hungry, a World Food Programme (WFP) report has found.

“These are the worst conditions on record,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP’s Haiti director. “Food insecurity in Haiti has been going downhill and Haiti is sliding into a hunger emergency.”

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South Sudan ‘failed’ by international aid system as food crisis intensifies

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Catholic charity Cafod says local NGOs are best placed to respond on the frontline but are being cut out of the process

South Sudan is facing the world’s most severe food insecurity crisis, yet the local groups most effective at delivering aid are not being directly funded, according to a new report.

Only 0.4% of humanitarian funding meant for food is directly channelled towards South Sudanese NGOs, despite them being the most effective at tackling hunger, according to the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod).

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Help world’s poor as well as Ukraine, say faith charities as pope visits South Sudan

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An open letter, backed by opinion poll, urges the UK to restore aid budget on eve of a three-day ‘pilgrimage for peace’ in the east African country

The British government’s financial support for Ukraine must not be at the cost of aid to other areas of the world in crisis, three faith-based charities have warned, on the eve of an unprecedented joint pilgrimage to South Sudan led by Pope Francis.

The organisations are calling on the government to restore the 59% cut in the UK’s aid budget to South Sudan, and invest in peacebuilding, conflict management and reconciliation.

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Former development secretaries urge Sunak to increase east Africa aid amid drought

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‘Famine in all but name’ ravaging Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, yet British aid is one-fifth of 2017 amount

The UK urgently needs to do more to help more than 28 million people in drought-stricken Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, two former secretaries of state for international development and the heads of 14 of the UK’s leading aid agencies have warned in a joint letter to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

They say one person is dying every 36 seconds, yet British aid to the region is only one-fifth of what Britain provided when the region was struck by famine in 2017. More than 7 million children are acutely malnourished across the three countries.

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‘Overlapping shocks’ are undoing efforts to end hunger in Africa, UN warns

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Urgent aid response needed as climate crisis, Covid, local conflicts and soaring fuel prices push millions more into hunger

• ‘We need urgent help’: Somalis displaced by drought and famine fight to survive

Decades of work to reduce hunger in Africa are being reversed as the continent struggles to cope with conflict, climate crisis and the global economic downturn, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned.

About 278 million people in Africa – approximately one-fifth of the total population – went hungry in 2021, an increase of 50 million people since 2019, according to UN figures. Based on current trends, this is projected to rise to 310 million by 2030.

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Biden takes aim at food insecurity with first hunger conference in 50 years – as it happened

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Biden releases national hunger and nutrition strategy, which includes a slate of goals to help end food insecurity

Biden is going into the main pillars of the national hunger and nutrition strategy released on Tuesday, which includes a slew of goals to help end food insecurity, give people more information and options to eat more healthily, and help folks take up regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, the goals are more a call to action, as Congress has ended Covid-era policies like the universal free school meals program and the expanded child tax credits which had massively reduced food insecurity and child poverty in the US.

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Horn of Africa drought puts 3.6m children at risk of dropping out of school

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Experts warn that girls’ education will be worst hit, as many families are forced to move away from schools

More than 3.5 million children are at risk of dropping out of school due to the drought in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations has said, amid warnings the crisis could lead to “a lost generation” that misses out on education.

According to new figures shared with the Guardian, Unicef now estimates that 3.6 million children in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are in danger of leaving school as a result of the cumulative pressure on households caused by the unrelenting drought.

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Extreme hunger soaring in world’s climate hotspots, says Oxfam

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Charity says 19 million people facing starvation in report highlighting link with extreme weather

Extreme hunger is closely linked to the climate crisis, with many areas of the world most affected by extreme weather experiencing severe food shortages, research has shown.

The development charity Oxfam examined 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, afflicted by drought, floods, severe storms and other extreme weather, and found their rates of extreme hunger had more than doubled in the past six years.

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Drought likely to push parts of Somalia into famine by end of year, warns UN

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World is ‘in last minute of the 11th hour to save lives’, says aid chief, amid fears that crisis is worse than 2010 famine, when 250,000 died

Two areas of Somalia are likely to enter a state of famine later this year as the country battles an unrelenting drought and flare-ups of conflict, the UN humanitarian chief has warned.

Martin Griffiths said the latest UN food insecurity analysis had found “concrete indications” that famine would occur in the Baidoa and Burhakaba districts of south-central Somalia between October and December unless aid efforts were significantly stepped up.

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‘We need your help’: Bishops plead with UK to aid drought-ravaged Horn of Africa

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Open letter from 44 Anglican leaders contrasts ‘generous’ British response to Ukraine with ‘dire need’ still unmet in their countries

Dozens of bishops from drought-ravaged east Africa have appealed to the UK government to urgently get more funding to those in need, warning that Britain’s rapid response to the Ukraine crisis must not come at the expense of lives elsewhere.

As the worst drought for four decades tightens its grip on Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, with millions facing acute hunger, the group of 44 Anglican bishops criticised the international community for not paying attention to early warnings or backing up rhetoric with sufficient funds.

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Tigray: almost one in three children under five malnourished, UN says

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Urgent action needed to avert further disaster in war-torn country as funding ‘fast running out’

Nearly one in three children under five in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are malnourished and the UN said urgent action is needed to prevent them from dying.

According to a new emergency assessment carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP), 29% of very young children are suffering from global acute malnutrition (GAM). More than half of pregnant or breastfeeding woman are also malnourished.

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Hunger in Tigray pushing women and girls into sex work

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People in Ethiopian region turn to desperate measures after authorities stop 6 million people accessing their own money

Hunger in the besieged region of Tigray is pushing people to increasingly desperate measures as the authorities are systematically blocking and confiscating remittances needed by millions of people.

Banking services and all communications have been cut off to the state by the Ethiopian administration since last year, with 6 million people denied access to their own money.

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