Tag: IDPs

Neglected Crisis in The Central African Republic

September 30, 2026     The Central African Republic, CAR, has been in crisis for many years due to conflict, high mortality and increasing food insecurity.  Independent UN analysis has estimated that just over 2 million people, nearly one-third of the population, were in food Crisis or worse (IPC 3+), including about 262,000 in Emergency (IPC 4).   The UN estimates more than 62,000 vulnerable people received food or cash assistance in August, while over 11,500 internally displaced people in Am-Dafock gained improved access to safe drinking water.

The following review about Extreme Food Insecurity in CAR was contributed by Augustin Gang Karume (of Rebuild Hope for Africa, Jennifer OKeeffe (of Johns Hopkins University), and Les Roberts (of Columbia University).

Our findings add to the many indicators that there are near famine-like conditions in CAR, particularly in the half of the country outside of Government control, and that this has become worse since 2020. Households reported that 97.0% of adults and 92.7% of children had reduced their meals since the crisis. Of these, 82.3% of adults and 70.8% of children were reportedly eating one meal or less a day. More than two thirds of households did not have resources to sustain them for more than two weeks. There is a dearth of children less than 3 years of age and child mortality in non-GC areas is well above the famine threshold (Gang et al., 2023).

External factors have only exacerbated the crisis. During the pandemic, global prices surged for imported fuel and fertilizers reducing agricultural inputs in 2022, leading to lower crop yields, especially among small farmers (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2022). Cameroon, a critical economic partner for CAR, banned certain food exports further decreasing market availability and increasing prices (Famine Early Warning Systems Network). Like the rest of the world, in efforts to protect population health, the Government of CAR imposed restrictions on movements inside and outside of its borders, resulting in serious negative household economic impact.

Government-supported (Russian mercentary) Wagner forces have drastically escalated violence in CAR. Since their arrival, they have executed a “campaign of terror”, inflicting human rights abuses such as systematic rape, torture, and mass killings, including targeted murders based on ethnicity(The Sentry, 2023, June). Following this campaign, attacks on civilians by local rebel groups have increased, as Wagner presence has posed a clear threat to their survival (United Nations Secretary-General, 2023). The UN reported in 2023 that 56% of Central Africans, or 3.4 million people, required humanitarian aid, with one in five displaced. Field reports during data collection revealed civilians abandoning their fields due to fears of attack, rape, or murder. Many relied on small home gardens as their sole source of food.  Households in the Central African Republic have been forced to make difficult choices, such as eating less nutritious foods or reducing calorie intake. Manioc, the main food staple in CAR, is notably deficient in nutritional value. The fact that most households reported an absence of more nutrient-rich foods, such as animal proteins, fruits, and vegetables indicate the pervasiveness of malnutrition risk. Children, particularly those under five, face growth and developmental issues, and frequent illnesses due to compromised immunity (Bourke et al., 2016; Ricciuti, 1981). For adults to engage in farming or labor, they require physical well-being achieved through sufficient calorie intake and nutrient-rich meals.

In the context of food shortages, negative coping strategies may have detrimental effects on both physical and mental health, sometimes more so than the lack of food itself. The practice of borrowing food, rooted in African solidarity and strong family networks, can lead to conflict if the lending family is unable to reclaim their resources when needed. This becomes particularly problematic when many households face food insecurity, which could exacerbate vulnerability across entire communities. Selling assets, a common but unsustainable solution, impedes future recovery, as does reliance on expensive purchased items. The reported level of food insecurity suggests that sudden disasters, like droughts or floods, could escalate nutrition-related illness and death. Additionally, any change in household composition, such as a birth or death, could further threaten food security.

CAR is experiencing one of the world’s most severe food crises, a situation that humanitarian organizations have been warning about for over two decades. Recent assessments indicate that in CAR, 298,000 children under five and 140,600 pregnant and lactating women suffer from acute malnutrition.

Furthermore, it is reported that an additional 40% or 395,000 children under five are chronically malnourished (UN OCHA, 2022a). Recent mortality estimates suggest that the UN and other organizations may be significantly underestimating mortality rates in CAR.  The authors of this paper argue that the “famine- level” mortality observed in non-GC areas corresponds with the food shortages reported here but does not align with previous malnutrition estimates. This discrepancy raises questions about whether UN malnutrition estimates have also been underestimated or if CAR’s situation is unique due to factors such as lack of access to fertile land, extreme stress from the Government-Wagner military campaign, and high infectious disease risks. The fact that previous findings show a dearth of young children combined with an under-5 mortality rate only 40% higher than the crude mortality rate, makes this question more difficult to answer.

Looking at the humanitarian response in CAR raises further questions. In 2022, food security was the only cluster other than coordination to meet 100% of its funding needs. Indeed, it exceeded its goal by 26% for a total of 205.8 million USD dedicated to addressing food insecurity in CAR (UN OCHA, 2023). Yet, only 17 of the 70 clusters reported receiving food aid, and these were disproportionately in more insecure areas, to the credit of WFP and ACF, the main reported providers. That said, the majority of the neediest communities, and 82% of households reportedly received no aid. There must be ways to better support delivery of aid to areas that need it the most. In contrast to the food security cluster, the related nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) clusters only received 42% and 43% of requested funds respectively. This gap suggests major shortcomings in the ability of the humanitarian community to adequately respond to the multi-faceted crisis in CAR.

The findings here underscore the pressing need for comprehensive and sustainable interventions to improve food security in CAR, particularly in the more insecure areas. Ongoing conflict, population displacement, abandonment of fields, reduction in arable land, and lack of access to seeds and tools, all contribute to the challenges that households in CAR face.

Insufficient nutrition and calorie-intake perpetuate a vicious cycle, whereby a household’s ability to acquire food is inhibited by its scarcity. To break the cycle, alternative strategies are needed. Food security is not likely to improve on its own in the near future. The need for food aid that reaches households quickly and meets nutritional needs is as pronounced as it has ever been. By delivering this aid, the humanitarian community can show that the life of an individual living in CAR is worth exactly the same as the life of a person living in other crises (Jarrett & Checchi, 2023).

Recommendations
To meet the immediate needs of the population, emergency food assistance is necessary and will require a mix of direct food distribution with cash transfers and/or vouchers. With low agricultural outputs in past years, market assessments are needed to determine whether cash vouchers and coupons will allow households to procure enough food to meet their nutritional needs. In areas where the yield is low and market prices high, food rations should be distributed instead. Rations should include high protein items such as fortified biscuits and ready-to-use therapeutic foods, addressing both the urgent food demand and the fact that the primary staple, manioc, and manioc leaves, provide limited caloric and nutritional value.

To prevent imminent loss of life and health, a successful aid package would combine expansion of nutrition and WASH interventions to address the acute needs of vulnerable groups such as children <5, pregnant and lactating women, and the elderly. Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) campaigns could be conducted to provide households with information on dietary diversity and encourage them to adopt diverse and nutrient-rich diets from locally available food items, keeping in mind that the many geopolitical, environmental, and social factors outside of households’ control mean that mere KAP campaigns will not be sufficient.

Agricultural support will help households recover from food insecurity and become self-sufficient in the long-term. Training and distributions of seeds and tools will contribute to agricultural production. Specifically, training on best farming practices and sustainable agriculture will increase output and assure fields will bear future harvests without harm to the environment. “Mixed Farming” systems, which include animal husbandry, reduce risks, and have been shown to have higher production than crop farming alone(Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations). Livestock have the potential to be transformative, enabling households to pay for health care, education, and other benefits to life and well-being.

Nigeria’s Ongoing Nutrition Crises

July 4, 2026    In Nigeria, some 35 million people are projected to experience acute and severe food insecurity during the 2026 lean season, according to the most recent Cadre Harmonisé, representing the worst levels of hunger recorded in a decade.  The hunger crisis is worst in the country’s northeast, where an estimated 15,000 people in Borno State are at risk of catastrophic hunger.

In 2026, about 3 million children under five in Nigeria are projected to suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.  One million of these children are in the cluster of northeastern BAY States.  In addition to conflict and displacement, overcrowding, low maternal income and the use of infant formula are associated with a higher prevalence of wasting.  Nigeria has experienced near 30‑year‑high inflation, driven by rising food prices, supply‑side constraints, and exchange‑rate depreciation.  Food inflation has historically been the dominant driver of headline inflation.  The Government of Nigeria eliminated fuel subsidies and tightened monetary policy; these reforms may improve long‑term economic growth but have raised short‑term living costs.

Recently, displacement and flooding have also fueled cholera and measles outbreaks, with damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and low immunization coverage accelerating transmission.  In North and Central Nigeria, armed groups, rural bandits, and farmer-herder clashes have forced thousands of producers off their land, disrupting farming cycles and leaving large portions of farmland unused. Between 2022 and 2024, farmer-herder conflicts were recorded in 31 states, kidnappings in 10 states, and crop theft in 20 states. Over two million hectares of farmland in northern Nigeria are now inaccessible. 

this NE region borders Lake Chad where violence has increased.   UNHCR reports that more than 77,500 people have been displaced across the Lake Chad Basin since January 2026 as violence intensifies across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.  According to UNHCR, incidents of violence rose by about 80 per cent between January 2024 and April 2026.  Similarly,  nearly 1,800 attacks and more than 5,700 deaths were recorded between September 2025 and May 2026 alone, reflecting what the agency described as a deepening protection crisis across the basin.

The “maize belt” (Borno, Niger, Plateau, Katsina, Gombe, Bauchi, Kogi, Kaduna, Oyo, Taraba), which produces ~44% of national maize, contains nearly half of that unused farmland.  Between April 2024 and March 2025, Nigeria spent $2.39 billion on food imports, 11.6% higher than the previous year, despite government commitments to boost local production.

Nigeria’s population roughly doubled from ~95–97 million in 1990 to ~232–237 million by 2024–2025 (growth rate ~2.1–2.4% annually). The under-5 population surged similarly. Agriculture (now ~24–28% of GDP, down historically) has grown too slowly (~2–3% annually in recent periods) to match, leading to rising food imports, per-capita production shortfalls, and pressure on resources. Smallholder-dominated, rain-fed systems with high post-harvest losses cannot keep up.  Nigeria’s child population is so large that even a stable or slightly declining malnutrition rate can mean millions of children affected.

Stunting remained alarmingly high, ranging from 7.2% (Osun, South West) to 61% (Kaduna, North Central), while wasting was as high as 29% (FCT Abuja, Central).  Stunting (chronic malnutrition, measured as height-for-age) among children under 5 fell from around 42–45% in the early 2000s (e.g., ~43% in 2003 NDHS data) to roughly 37% in 2013–2018 surveys and around 31.5–32% in more recent UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME).  The overall prevalence of anemia and vitamin A deficiency ranged between 55.2 to 75.1 % and 5.3 to 67.6%, respectively.

The World Bank estimated the number of impoverished Nigerians rose from 89.8 million at the start of 2023 to 104 million in roughly a year.

SOLUTIONS

The National Home-Grown School Feeding Program (NHGSFP) provides school meals.  The National Social Safety Nets Program (NASSP) Cash Transfer gives cash to poor households.  The Federal Government, with UNICEF and other partners, has committed $30 million to the Small Quantity Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements (SQ-LNS) initiative, targeting 2 million children aged 6-23 months in high-burden states.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization launched a $347 million Emergency and Resilience Plan (2026–2028). The strategy combines rapid agricultural assistance with long-term climate resilience, aiming to restore food production and reduce dependency on food aid for 12.6 million people across the north.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs nutrition projects in seven states in Nigeria: Borno, Bauchi, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kebbi. IOM tracks displacement and manages humanitarian hubs; UNHCR co-leads protection and durable-solutions work; Intersos and Helen Keller Intl operate where others have withdrawn.

Other NGOs with long-standing programs in Nigeria include Action Against Hunger, Partners for Development, Malteser, Christian Blind Mission, Save the Children, Plan International, and Catholic Relief Services.

  –  Contributed by WHES board member, Steven Hansch

 

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.

-Reported by Steven Hansch, for Hunger Notes

Annual UN Report on Global 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

– Contributed by Steven Hansch for Hunger Notes

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.

 

–  Contributed by WHES board member, Steven Hansch

 

 

 

 

 

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.