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DUBAI: Conflicts in the Middle East have intensified the global hunger crisis, leaving more children vulnerable to malnutrition and developmental issues, potentially jeopardizing the future of an entire generation.

Globally, almost 160 million people are in need of urgent assistance to stave off hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a global partnership that measures food insecurity.

While economic turmoil and climate extremes are among the top drivers of rising hunger worldwide, it is the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan that are the primary causes in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to the Global Report on Food Crises.

These conflicts, which have triggered mass displacements, disrupted supply chains and led to a significant drop in agricultural production, have deepened existing food insecurity for millions of people in an already climate stressed region.

In 2024, more than 41 million people were acutely food insecure across the MENA region, according to the latest figures of the World Food Programme.

Almost half of these were in Sudan, where 24.6 million people are facing acute malnutrition, including 638,000 living in famine conditions and 8.1 million teetering on the brink of mass starvation.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which broke out on April 15, 2023, has displaced at least 10 million people, making it the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.

The IPC’s declaration of a famine in Sudan marks only the third formal famine determination since the international famine monitoring system was established two decades ago. Previous classifications were made in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017, and South Sudan again in 2020.

Children are bearing the brunt of Sudan’s hunger crisis.

Timmo Gaasbeek, a food security expert who has worked in Sudan, said that it is often infants and young children who are among the first to succumb to malnutrition and starvation during times of famine.

“Young children, and the elderly, are more vulnerable than adults, and will be at higher risk of death due to different diseases like diarrhea or malaria,” Gaasbeek told Arab News.

“In famines, most people die of diseases that their bodies have no resistance to because of hunger, rather than of lack of food itself.”

As of November 2024, an estimated 4.7 million children under the age of five, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women, were suffering from acute malnutrition in Sudan, according to WFP.

Even in areas where famine has not been declared, persistent hunger and malnutrition can also ultimately result in death. “Even a 35 percent deficit in energy intake can be fatal if sustained long enough,” Gaasbeek said.

“Millions of people in Sudan are currently at this level of hunger, or worse.”

Widespread hunger in Sudan has been compounded by a sharp economic decline, high food prices, and weather extremes combined with poor sanitation, which has triggered a deadly cholera outbreak, creating what has been dubbed “the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.”

As of December, the IPC had declared famine in five areas, including Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam in North Darfur. People in five other areas of North Darfur, including the besieged Al-Fasher, could face starvation by May. A further 17 areas are at risk of famine-level malnutrition.

As a result of the fighting and other logistical challenges, it took three months for a WFP aid convoy to reach Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, home to 500,000 people and the first area where famine was declared in August.

“The combination of fighting around North Darfur’s capital Al-Fasher, and impassable roads brought on by the rainy season from June to September, severed incoming transport of food assistance for months,” WFP said in a statement at the time.

Access was only made possible after Sudanese authorities agreed to temporarily open the Adre border crossing from Chad into Darfur until February 2025.

This aid was a drop in the ocean, however, as the destruction of Sudanese farming has set the country back years.

Gaasbeek said that it would take about 800,000 tons of food aid in 2026 and 400,000 tons in 2027 to minimize hunger-related deaths in Sudan, which can only happen if the war ends before the start of the next planting season in June 2025.

“The key to stopping hunger in Sudan is getting more food into the country,” he said.

About two thirds of grain consumed in Sudan is produced locally, and commercial imports provide about a third. However, those two aspects are affected by the war and economic collapse.

“Commercial imports are maxed out at the moment as consumers have limited purchasing power and numerous logistical and financial challenges hindering food distribution,” Gaasbeek said.

“Companies have limited resources to import more. This means that the only thing that can make a difference this year is an increase in food aid imports.”

He estimates that if aid deliveries remain limited, some 6 million people could die from hunger in 2025. “If the conflict continues unabated, or worse escalates further, both food production and imports would stagnate, requiring very high levels of food aid to prevent mass starvation.”

While there are no official figures on hunger-related deaths in Sudan, Gaasbeek estimates that hunger and disease killed about 500,000 people in 2024 — about one percent of the population.

“It is not unrealistic, especially that the deaths of children are not very visible,” he said.

On Jan. 6, the UN launched a $4.2 billion call for funding to assist 20.9 million of the 30.4 million people across Sudan who are now in desperate need. More than half of them are children.

In late December, the Sudanese government rejected the IPC’s conclusions that famine was now rife in Sudan, accusing the organization of procedural and transparency failings and of failing to use updated field data.

The IPC had requested access to other areas at risk of famine in South Darfur, Al-Jazirah and Khartoum to gain data on the situation, but the government has been accused of stonewalling such efforts.

Sudan is not the only hunger hotspot in the MENA region.

The war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, has displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s two million people and has led to high levels of acute food insecurity, with half the population expected to face extreme malnutrition.

On Nov. 9, the Famine Review Committee issued an alert warning of “imminent famine” in the besieged northern Gaza, where the World Health Organization estimates some 75,000 inhabitants remain.

Many of the displaced are battling frigid winter temperatures in squalid tents, frequently flooded by heavy rain in south and central Gaza, without consistent access to food or medical services.

Early in the conflict, Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, severely limiting the amount of humanitarian aid that was permitted to enter. Tighter restrictions have been imposed on northern Gaza since last October, as Israel intensifies efforts to weed out Hamas fighters.

In December, Israeli authorities allowed only two aid convoys to enter northern Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, exacerbating the hunger crisis.

With some 70 percent of Gaza’s crop fields destroyed, and with shops, factories and bakeries damaged or destroyed, domestic food manufacture has all but collapsed, according to the IPC.

As in Sudan, the burden of food scarcity has fallen on vulnerable children. In June, the WHO recorded 32 deaths from malnutrition, including 28 children under the age of five.

“Over 8,000 children under five years old have been diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition, including 1,600 children with severe acute malnutrition,” WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said at the time.

However, Palestinian health authorities and the World Peace Foundation expect the number of children who have succumbed to hunger in Gaza to be far higher than official estimates.

More than 96 percent of women and children in Gaza cannot meet their basic nutritional needs, as they survive on rationed flour, lentils, pasta and canned goods — a diet that slowly compromises their health, according to the UN children’s fund, UNICEF.

For children, the impact of malnutrition on development can be irreversible.

“It affects their mental capacities and can put them at risk of physical challenges including stunted growth, delayed puberty, weakened immunity and increased risk of chronic diseases, vision and hearing impairments,” Dr. Yazeed Mansour Alkhawaldeh, a former health specialist at Medecins Sans Frontieres, told Arab News.

“Such circumstances can impact children’s cognitive and emotional development as well, resulting in a lower IQ and poor academic performance. They are also more prone to develop anxiety, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”