The Guardian reports:

The continuing US-Israel war on Iran has compounded other global disasters to drive record numbers of people into hunger at a time when funding to combat famine has fallen dramatically, the deputy head of the UN World Food Programme has said.

The WFP says 363 million people around the world are now at risk of acute hunger, 45 million of them as a result of conflict in the Middle East and the consequent oil price spike.

The surge in need comes against the backdrop of a cut in funding last year by a third, with the US, the largest donor by far, cutting its contribution by more than half.

Carl Skau, who will become the WFP’s acting executive director on Monday when Cindy McCain steps down for health reasons, said the huge gap between needs and funding had forced the organisation to cut programmes supporting populations in food emergencies so as to focus on those already facing catastrophic famine.

“We take from the hungry to give to the starving. That’s the reality,” Skau told the Guardian. “Much of this is driven by conflict. Last year, we had two famines declared. That hasn’t happened in decades, so these are historic levels of hunger.”

The two famines declared in 2025 were in Gaza and Sudan. The situation in Gaza has improved slightly since the October ceasefire, while Sudan continues to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with pockets of famine persisting in parts of Darfur and South Kordofan. [Continue reading…]