Tag: IDPs

Hunger in Haiti

April 28, 2026:   Over the last six years, the food crisis in Haiti has grown steadily worse.  In 2019–2020, around 3.7 million Haitians were in food insecurity (IPC) Phase 3 or above.  By 2022–2023, that was approaching 4.7 million, nearly half the population. The most recent UN Integrated Phase Classification system analysis shows 5.7 million people (more than half the population) facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with 1.9 million in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency).

What distinguishes Haiti from other countries is the degree to which hunger is caused by gangs.  Historically, gang violence in Haiti was largely concentrated in specific slums of Port-au-Prince. While devastating for those communities, the national food supply chain, which relies heavily on imports through the capital’s port, remained somewhat functional.  Between October 2024 and June 2025, gang violence expanded westward into the Artibonite and Centre Departments, where 92,000 and 147,000 people were displaced respectively. By early 2025, the violence had also expanded into previously untouched areas of the country, and gangs began expanding north, south and east toward the Dominican Republic border, with the apparent goal of controlling key roads used for illegal weapons trafficking.

Gangs directly affect Haiti’s food economy.   Haiti imports over 70% of its rice and wheat but gangs now control key maritime and overland routes , strangling the entire country’s supply chain.  The Port of Port-au-Prince is blocked, forcing rerouting to Cap-Haïtien, raising costs.

Agricultural output in the Artibonite is down by at least 48%, according to the technical coordinator at the Artibonite Valley Development Organization. Gangs have taken over irrigation canals that feed the valley, leaving fields barren. Agriculture has stopped entirely in areas like Petite Rivière, Verrettes, and Pont-Sondé, where fields lie fallow and are overrun by weeds.   Gangs control irrigation systems (e.g., in Liancourt, Verrettes), forcing farmers to pay “taxes” for water or share their harvest.  Major markets (e.g., Croix-des-Bossales) are >80% non-functional.

UN World Food Program analysis using European Space Agency satellite imagery found up to 3,000 hectares of Artibonite farmland abandoned in 2023 compared to 2018, and hunger in these areas jumped from 40% to 57% in a single year.

According to ACLED, instances of sociopolitical violence almost doubled in three years , from 455 events in 2020 to 874 in 2023. The number of violent events in January 2024 was more than 70% higher than January 2023, and more than 60% above the five-year average.  As a result, over 1.4 million people are displaced (double the number from just a year ago), overwhelming host communities.  More than 5,600 people were killed in 2024 alone. Between October 2024 and June 2025, another 4,864 people were killed.

The graph at right shows how the prevalence of child malnutrition has increased over recent years.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reports that 75% of households cannot afford health services, and nearly 50% of the population survives on less than $3 a day.

In this 2026 cycle, UNICEF has targeted over 129,000 children (aged 6–59 months) for treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition.  UNICEF’s estimate of the increase in the number of cases of severe malnutrition is shown in the graph below.

Aid agencies have been continuously trying to provide life-saving assistance.  NGOs such as CARE, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision have led large consortia to promote nutrition in Haiti for decades, though the ability of outside agencies to operate has become constrained.  Today, agencies responding include:

  • -Action Against Hunger US is involved in Haiti. They support populations affected by violence and displacement, delivering critical food assistance and cash support in the Nord-Ouest region. In Nord-Est and Sud, their focus is on preventing malnutrition through targeted interventions. In Port-au-Prince, they provide vocational training, treat children suffering from malnutrition, and offer primary healthcare services to over 30,000 people.
  • -Catholic Relief Services (CRS) provides food assistance.
  • -CARE provides food to displaced populations.
  • -Compassion International provides food and voucher support through 365 church partners, helping children and caregivers.
  • -GOAL is providing cash for food security.
  • -Malteser International supports food security and nutrition, working with community health centers to identify and support malnourished children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.
  • -Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) provides mobile and maternity clinics.
  • -Partners In Health (PIH/Zanmi Lasante): PIH deploys mobile food clinics staffed with medical professionals and community health workers to sites in the Artibonite region. They seek to identify malnourished children early so treatment can be delivered before health problems become fatal
  • -World Vision. World Vision is active in Haiti with child-focused hunger work, including school meals and other food support. Recent World Vision materials also describe food packages and support tied to the hunger crisis in Haiti.
  • -Meds & Food for Kids (MFK). This is a particularly important nutrition-focused Haiti organization. MFK produces therapeutic and supplemental foods in Haiti and works with Haitian clinics to treat malnourished infants and toddlers; it also runs school-feeding support with Vita Mamba

New Global Report on Food Crises, 2026

April 26, 2026

The 2026 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), jointly published on April 24 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Global Network Against Food Crises, estimates that some 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished across 23 nutrition crisis countries.  “This tenth edition… reveals an alarming reality: hunger is increasingly being used as a weapon of war.”  

“Ending hunger is a test of our shared humanity. It is a test we cannot fail.” the U.N. Secretary-General wrote in the Foreword.

In 2025, approximately 266 million people across 47 countries and territories faced crises or acute food insecurity, requiring urgent humanitarian assistance.  The report discusses rates of malnutrition based on medical clinic screening in Gaza and western Sudan, including El Fasher and Kadugli.   Much of the rest of the Sudan is also seen as at risk.

The Global Network Against Food Crises itself is described as an alliance including the UN, EU, Germany’s BMZ, UK FCDO, Ireland, g7+, and other governmental/non-governmental agencies.

Comparing reports over the years, the trajectory from 2020 to 2025 is stark.  In 2020, approximately 155 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity) across 55 countries, already a sharp rise from 105 million in 2016.  By 2025, that figure stood at 266 million across 47 countries, though the 2026 report explicitly cautions that the apparent drop from the 2023 peak of 282 million partly reflects reduced country coverage rather than genuine improvement. The share of the analyzed population in acute food insecurity nearly doubled from about 11 percent in 2016 to nearly 23 percent in 2025, and had already crossed 21 percent by 2020.

In 2019 and 2020, David Beasley, as the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), highlighted the risk of multiple concurrent famines, while the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.  Beasley delivered the Nobel lecture where he called for action to prevent widespread starvation.    In 2020, the primary crisis concentration was already in a familiar set of countries, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, the Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, which the 2026 report notes have been among the ten largest food crises for most of the decade.

Myanmar [Burma] and South Sudan were newly classified as very severe nutrition crises in 2026, categories they did not hold in the earlier period.

Meanwhile, some populations showed meaningful improvement. Bangladesh saw a significant 32 percent decrease in acutely food-insecure people between 2024 and 2025, and Syria reduced its share from 39 to 29 percent of the population — though both remained at alarming absolute levels.

The report covers various causes of malnutrition, including war and climate. Weather extremes had grown enormously as a driver — from 15 countries affecting 15.7 million people in 2020 to 16 countries affecting 87.5 million people in 2025, a roughly five-fold increase in affected population. The 2023–2024 El Niño, described as one of the strongest on record, drove much of this, devastating Southern Africa in particular.

The report and its annexes reviewed methods.  For instance, WFP conducted 800,000 survey interviews in 2025, a 30 percent reduction from 1.1 million the prior year. FAO’s Data in Emergencies surveys fell 31 percent, from about 170,000 to 118,000 interviews.  An ongoing Acute Food Insecurity Trends Study was specifically designed to correct for temporal, methodological, population, and spatial omission biases that make year-to-year comparisons unreliable. This work was not yet in place for the 2020 edition. Additionally, the 2026 report notes specific methodology changes in individual countries — for instance, Zimbabwe’s IPC methodology changed between periods, and Uganda shifted from FEWS NET to IPC classification, adding 3.3 million people to Phase 3 counts simply through the methodological switch.

Access the report:

https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/86067cbb-9396-4e7d-8d19-e60ad00d2f73/content

Technical notes:  https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/sites/default/files/resource/file/2026_GRFC_APP_TECHNOTES.pdf

https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/global-report-food-crises

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2026-joint-analysis-global-report-food-crises

Past reports:

https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/knowledge-hub/search?f%5B0%5D=series%3A39

Threat of Child Malnutrition in Iran Amid U.S.–Iran Conflict

February 28, 2026       The U.S.–Iran war that began today, 28 February 2026, threatens to sharply worsen malnutrition among children under five in low-income urban neighborhoods of strike zones (Tehran, Isfahan, Kermanshah) and in rural border provinces (e.g., Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan) that already experience high malnutrition rates.

Iran, with a total population of 93 million people, has 7 ½ million children under five years of age, which is more children than Germany, the UK, Canada, Iraq, Syria, Italy, Turkey, or France.

Over the last few decades the occurrence of childhood stunting (a form of long-term malnutrition) and of wasting (short-term) malnutrition have declined in Iran, reflected by the government’s attention to treating malnutrition.   However, studies in southern Iran from 2018 to 2023 show a significant increase in underweight and wasting among young children, with the annual % change of severe wasting increasing by 8.9%.  Nationally, the rate of wasting has averaged 4.2%, which is medium for regional and peer countries.  Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) manages child malnutrition programs through primary healthcare centers, hospitals, and nutrition initiatives.  Treatment follows protocols similar to WHO/UNICEF guidelines for community-based management of acute malnutrition, which emphasize outpatient therapeutic care using Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for severe malnutrition.

The most widespread micronutrient deficiency diseases in Iran include vitamin D (rickets), iron (anemia), vitamin A, and zinc deficiency.  Iran addresses these through national programs (e.g., supplementation, fortification of foods like flour with iron/folate, salt iodization, and targeted UNICEF-supported interventions in high-risk provinces), but challenges persist due to economic factors, dietary habits, and regional disparities.

Even before the current war threats, Iran’s food economy was struggling under the weight of international sanctions and mismanagement.  The conflict will further reduce Iranian families’ ability to afford food.  In fact, the protests that broke out in December 2025 were in part over increased food prices after the rial plunged against the U.S. dollar.   There has been criticism by Iranians that their government has failed to present a clear emergency response plan, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. 

Iran produces much of its own wheat, dates, barley, rice, pistachios, walnuts, citrus fruits, and saffron.  It imports rice, cooking oils, soybeans, sugar, tea, and dairy.  The fighting will disrupt Iran’s ability to import food commodities, tightening supply.  Agricultural supply chains, transportation networks, storage facilities, and water infrastructure are all vulnerable.  Damaged roads and ports will impede food distribution across the country.

Urban bombardment now underway in Tehran and other major cities will displace families.  Reuters today reports that Iranians have fled cities in search of safety, rushed to stock up on food, and formed long queues at fuel stations as attacks by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.  Iranian government messages have explicitly encouraged people to leave Tehran and other targeted cities to avoid attacks.  This kind of internal displacement typically leads to overcrowded towns, strain on services, and informal settlements on the periphery of safer cities.

Internally displaced populations lose access to stable food sources, income, and caregiving routines.  Young children are disproportionately harmed by the disruption of feeding practices and by unhygienic displacement conditions that compound malnutrition with infectious disease.

Iran is known as a country that takes care of refugees.  Estimates vary, but UNHCR and other agencies report roughly some 3.8 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations in Iran as of 2025, overwhelmingly from Afghanistan and a smaller number from Iraq and other countries.

Iran has been prone to disasters due to large earthquakes and famines.  As well, in February 1972, a week-long series of storms  brought up to 26 feet (8 meters) of snow in rural areas of western Iran which buried over 200 villages, killing thousands.

Iran also suffered severe famines in 1870-72 and during the First and Second World Wars.  The most recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization report about Iran (November 2025) notes that persistent dry weather has hampered winter wheat plantings, leading to an estimated cereal production nearly 10% below the five-year average in 2025.  It found that wheat prices in Tehran had risen 50% and rice prices had tripled, compared to the previous year.

Iran has a fairly extensive domestic social protection system by regional standards, though it has faced significant strains in recent years.  The Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC) is one of the largest non-governmental charitable organizations in the world by some measures. It operates under government supervision and provides cash transfers, food assistance, healthcare subsidies, and vocational training to millions of low-income Iranians. It draws on religious endowments (waqf) and public donations alongside state funding.   The State Welfare Organization (SWO) handles a broader range of social services including disability support, elderly care, and assistance for vulnerable families.

International aid agencies help Iran in disasters, including the Red Cross.  The national Red Crescent society of Iran, part of the global IFRC network, has deep roots in domestic disaster relief, rescue, and healthcare operations.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been working in Iran since the late 1970s.  The ICRC provides humanitarian services related to conflict-affected populations, health, and protection.

Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors without Borders) has been operating health programs in Iran.  Many other international NGOs have been hesitant to work in Iran, where the government distrusts Western organizations.  An exception has been Relief International (RI), which was founded in 1990 following the catastrophic Manjil–Rudbar earthquake in northern Iran.

The convergence of active conflict, pre-existing economic strain, and disrupted supply chains creates a compounding crisis for Iran’s most vulnerable — particularly children under five.  International humanitarian organizations face their own obstacles operating in Iran, given longstanding government suspicion of Western NGOs. The children most at risk — those in strike zones like Tehran and Isfahan, and those in already-malnourished border provinces like Sistan-Baluchestan — are precisely the populations least able to weather further disruption to food access, clean water, and caregiving. Without rapid and coordinated humanitarian response, the malnutrition crisis that predates this conflict will deepen sharply, with consequences that will outlast the fighting itself.

 

S. Hansch, WHES Board

 

 

 

 

 

Hunger Increases Even Further in The Sudan

August 28, 2025:  Aid agencies estimate that malnutrition in Sudan increases in scale, depth and scope.  Much of the reporting comes from the far western region of Darfur, where, between January and May 2025, North Darfur saw a 46% increase in children admitted for SAM treatment at health centers compared to the same period in 2024 — with over 40,000 children treated in just that region.

As a result of 2 1/2 years of civil war, over 14 million Sudanese have been displaced by violence, both internally and across borders.  In the largest camp for displaced persons, Zamzam in North Darfur,  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported devastating malnutrition rates — as high as 29–30% acute malnutrition, and high mortality (e.g., one child dying every two hours.  Similarly,  Save the Children reported a nearly fourfold increase in severe acute malnutrition cases seen in one South Kordofan clinic from June 2023 to June 2024, with 1,457 children admitted in June 2024 alone.

Though access by international organizations to children in this large, rural country is limited, UNICEF estimates that some 3.2 million children under 5 may have  acute malnutrition in 2025, including about 770,000 experiencing Severe Acute Malnutrition, meaning they are extremely wasted.

The U.N.’s advisory body about famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported 25.6 million people in the Sudan are food insecure, and of those, 8.5 million are in Emergency (Famine degree Phase 4) and another 755,000 are in Catastrophe/Famine (Famine degree Phase 5).

Humanitarian access is greatly constrained, with persistent fighting preventing deliveries of food or supplies into many areas, notably in Darfur, Khartoum, and regions with large numbers of internally displaced person.

Concern Worldwide is supporting 81 health facilities across Sudan, particularly in West and Central Darfur, treating children under five for acute malnutrition, with a focus on delivering ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).  Despite the destruction of Sudan’s only RUTF factory in 2023, Concern has secured and delivered 10 metric tons of RUTF to vulnerable communities. In 2024, they reached nearly 484,000 people with lifesaving health and nutrition support.