Today, there is a war unlike any other happening within our world. It has been going for decades, and millions of people are dying. The battle is harsh and unyielding in its strategies, and it leaves only destruction and chaos in its wake. This war is called Hunger. It has left approximately 815 million individuals starving and without proper nutrition to feed their families. Millions of people around the world are fighting to stay alive every day that they cannot provide for their loved ones. Children are living their lives without proper care, and they are slowly dying because of the lack of food that they have in their daily lives. Many smaller countries have poor residents that do not have the ability to afford even the cheapest of vegetables and fruit, choosing instead to pay for junk food that can hurt the body and cause a higher rate of obesity in the future.

World hunger is an aspect of life that all people are aware of, whether it is obvious or not. It is affecting every single person in this world, and it is causing thousands of children every day to perish from a lack of nutrition. Some of the areas that contribute to this are Timor Leste, Sudan, Chad, the Yemen Republic, and Ethiopia. Over half of the population in each of these countries are suffering from lack of food for their citizens, and much of the population is starving. For example, 33% of the entire population of Chad, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, is quickly succumbing to the effects of world hunger. Clea Guy-Allen writes about the devastation within various countries as they continue to fight against the war of Hunger, “Chad relies heavily on external assistance for its food security, especially in the Sahelian zone. Cereal production is heavily affected by erratic rains, cyclical droughts, locust infestations and poor farming practices. The 2011 drought, which resulted in a 30 percent deficit in the population’s cereal needs, was then followed by a severe food and nutrition crisis in 2012.” The people of Chad suffer greatly from hunger as the forces of nature continue to ruin their resources and reduce their country’s population.

There are numerous factors that lead to the increasing issue of world hunger. as well as the growing death and poverty statistics that contribute to it. In some countries, such as Somalia and Syria, there is a major decline in their food supply. Both of these countries have been engaged in war, and they have been fighting for both their freedom and the lives of every single one of their people. One of the main causes of hunger within these nations is that fact that many soldiers from the opposing nations try to destroy the food that the men, women, and children desperately need in order to live.  The World Food Programme spoke about the war torn areas and their decrease in food supply, “In war, food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers will starve opponents into submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local markets. Fields are often mined and water wells contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their land.” As a result of this, there are thousands of people who are living without the proper food storage that they need to provide for themselves and others around them.

Another main effect of  hunger within countries is the types of agriculture that each country has access to. For instance, many established countries who are in the process of developing do not have the necessary systems to help their countries fight the battle of hunger. This includes irrigation systems and roads to help bring food to nearby villages and to supply the water needed for the plants and animals to feed off of.  In addition, the weather and the temperatures of different countries around the Earth can be a large factor in how the soil and growth of food is impacted. If a country experiences many droughts and has little rain, they will not have a very large food quantity to grow the plants needed for the health of their people. Tropical storms such as hurricanes and tsunamis in several different Asian countries also contribute to the amount of nutrition they have, for an excess amount of water can drown trees and saturate the soil in heavy amounts so plants will not have any room for their roots to grow.

When world hunger is on the rise, so is the declination of health for many people around the world, especially children. Within Africa, there are millions of children who wake up every day wondering if they will have food to eat at dinner that night. World Hunger Facts speaks about the numbers of children who are hungry, “66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.”  There are millions of children who are starving at this moment. Families all around our world are searching for freedom from their seemingly unending battle of world hunger. What steps will YOU take to help end this war?

Contributed By:

www.foodaidfoundation.org/world-hunger-statistics.html

www.freedomfromhunger.org/world-hunger-facts

www.wfp.org/news/news-release/world-hunger-again-rise-driven-conflict-and-climate-change-new-un-report-says

www.wfp.org/stories/what-causes-hunger

www.concernusa.org/story/worlds-ten-hungriest-countries/

www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-worlds-10-hungriest-countries/