Conflicts in Gaza and Sudan lead to record-breaking hunger: Two million people experiencing ‘catastrophic’ situation

The world has never seen so much hunger. For the sixth consecutive time, the Global Report on Food Crises, whose latest edition was published on May 9, confirms a situation that is worsening as a result of armed conflicts, climate change and economic crises. Produced by the Food Security Information Network, which is made up of members including the European Union and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the report warns that 295.3 million people —equivalent to 86% of the U.S. population — suffer from acute food insecurity, which occurs when there is insufficient availability of and access to food.

Additionally, in 2024 the number of people in “catastrophic” situations broke previous records: two million individuals, who are concentrated in Gaza, Sudan and South Sudan, live under the worst level of food security, as measured by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an international “thermometer” that gauges food access. When a situation gets to this point, populations need urgent and immediate help. Rein Paulsen, director of the FAO’s office of emergencies and resilience, fears what lies ahead in 2025. “One of our greatest concerns is our ability to respond with future interventions. It’s likely that we’ll see a significant decrease — between 11 and 45% — in food security interventions,” he warns.

The Global Report on Food Crises has been published since 2016 and monitors high-risk countries. This year’s data shows that 13.7 million more people are facing high levels of food insecurity compared to 2023. That roughly 5% increase is due, in part, to changes in the geographic coverage of the report, which surveys 53 nations. Of the 34 countries that it also monitored in 2023, 19 are in worse situations, as was the case for Namibia, Chad, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Pakistan.

In 20 of the analyzed nations and regions, including Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nigeria, Gaza and Sudan, the primary cause of food insecurity was conflict and violence. In 18 countries, it was extreme climate. And in another 15, among them Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and South Sudan, the economic situation was the most important factor.

2024 also presented a grave panorama. In July of last year, it was confirmed for the third time in history that one country — Sudan — was experiencing famine, a designation that can only be made by the IPC Famine Review Committee. It was also the year in which the highest number of people fell into the worst phase of the IPC scale, which is comprised of five levels of food insecurity: generally food secure, moderately/borderline food insecure, acute food and livelihood crisis, humanitarian emergency and famine/humanitarian catastrophe. The number of people in stage five, that of catastrophe, doubled the 2023 total at nearly two million. 95% of those individuals are located on the Gaza Strip and in Sudan. Extreme lack of food is also suffered by people in South Sudan, Haiti and Mali.

Last year, the Famine Review Committee predicted that famine classification was imminent in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Israeli invasion since October 2023 and by the violence that has once again taken hold since a short-lived ceasefire ended in March. In June 2024, data was influenced by the simultaneous arrival of increased supplies and humanitarian aid, and as such was not sufficient for the committee to make the famine designation, according to the FAO report.

No good news in 2025

But experts sense that the worst is yet to come in 2025. The report warns that the Gaza blockade in place since the ceasefire is exacerbating the situation. “Even under an optimistic scenario of double-digit growth and substantial foreign aid, livelihood recovery is projected to take decades to return to pre-October 2023 levels,” states the report regarding the region.

The FAO report also warns that the intensification of armed conflict and insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Sudan and South Sudan will complicate food access. It predicts that economic crises will reemerge as the primary cause of food insecurity, worsened by an uncertain global panorama. “Higher tariffs and a weakening U.S. dollar may drive up global commodity prices and disrupt supply chains with potential impacts on food availability and affordability,” states the report. At the same time, global warming will worsen droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan and could damage crops.

It’s clear that there will be less funding in 2025 than in 2024: exactly the opposite of what we need with these trends of acute food insecurity"

Rein Paulsen, director of the FAO's office of emergencies and resilience

To top it all off, cuts to humanitarian aid and cooperation projects that were made in the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency will also take their toll on food security in the Global South. Between 2016 and 2024, half of humanitarian funding for food came from the United States. The report warns that abrupt cuts made earlier this year have led to closures and interruptions of humanitarian operations in countries such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. “This is exactly the opposite of what we need with these trends of acute food insecurity,” laments Paulsen.

One of the challenges to humanitarian aid funding and development, he explains, is being able to combine different kinds of funds for all kinds of projects, not just those that provide assistance once a food crisis has already occurred. “For example,” he says, “around 80% of people facing acute food insecurity live in rural areas, and are in some way connected to agriculture for their survival. But only 3% of global funding for food security interventions goes to emergency agricultural projects and the delivery of seeds and tools to rural areas.” Paulsen explains that scaling up emergency agricultural projects is highly cost-effective, because they are four times cheaper and much more effective in terms of results. Strategies like these have been implemented in Afghanistan, for example, and have made it one of the 15 countries that showed improvements in food security indicators, as compared to 2023.

But the cuts won’t only impact projects that are already on the ground. They will also hobble certain evaluation and analysis operations, like data collection on food security and nutritional status. “We will have to be very efficient to get a ‘Polaroid’ of food security with the resources we will have available,” said Paulsen. Unless trends from the beginning of 2025 change drastically, there will not be enough money to alleviate hunger, nor eyes on where empty plates are located.

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