WHES Undertakes Research about Attacks Against Food & Nutrition in Humanitarian Aid

This month, toward the end of 2024, World Hunger Education Service  launched a broad  study about the patterns, trends and extent of violent attacks and threats against aid programs delivering food and nutrition solutions in famines, crises, war zones, and for displaced populations.  The results will be published here, in Hunger Notes.  This is an independent study that is at WHES’s initiative.

In recent years, there has been a growth in attention to and professional publications about attacks on health care in fragile states and conflicts, which include missiles, drones, shooting, targeted assassination, roadblocks, air strikes, mortar fire, kidnapping and siege.  All of these are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

There has been no corresponding attention to attacks on food assistance or nutrition programs, which this new study hopes to fill in.

WHES’s Lead Researcher, Eline de Looijier, is seeking inputs from a wide range of UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, donors, journalists,  researchers and observers who can help her document not only the extent of attacks on food/nutrition, but also how aid agencies adapt to threats and risks of attacks and seek to mitigate these risks.

WHES is an independent nonprofit and respects the confidentiality of people contributing to this study.  WHES thanks all those who are able to share their thoughts.  Please send inputs to Eline at:  Eline de Looijer <elinejdelooijer@gmail.com>

Central African Republic Facing Acute Food Shortages

A new report finds nearly half of all people in the Central African Republic are suffering acute food shortages. The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a joint effort by eight U.N. and International non-governmental organizations, finds more than 1.8 million people in C.A.R. are facing an emergency food crisis.

Starvation: a weapon of war that could kill 590,000 children by the end of 2018

Starvation being used as a weapon of war has become the new normal, according to Save the Children. Its analysis shows more than half a million infants in conflict zones could die of malnutrition by the end of the year if they do not receive treatment, the equivalent of one every minute.

In South Sudan, mothers are so hungry many can no longer breast-feed

Weeks after the outbreak of deadly fighting in South Sudan, aid groups say their movement is being restricted by continued violence and government checkpoints, harming their ability to get food and medicine to severely malnourished children.  “We already have an extremely serious food-insecurity crisis,” said U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien in an interview. “And there are many circumstances where, appallingly, this only gets worse.”…O’Brien said that during a trip to South Sudan this week, he met with mothers unable to breast-feed their babies because they themselves were not getting enough food.

Five years after independence, South Sudan faces myriad challenges

South Sudan has a population of just over 11 million people, 2.3 million of whom have fled their homes due to ongoing violence. About 1.61 million South Sudanese are displaced within South Sudan, and over 720,000 have sought refuge in neigbouring countries according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).