According to Common Dreams, 250 international organizations are demanding urgent action from global governments to address the hunger and famine faced by hundreds of millions—a crisis the groups said is driven largely by policy choices including ignored appeals for a global ceasefire and humanitarian funding.
Every day, we work with people who are fully capable of producing or earning enough to feed themselves and their families. These people are not starving, they are being starved. These girls and boys, men and women, are being starved by conflict and violence; by inequality; by the impacts of climate change; by the loss of land, jobs or prospects; by a fight against COVID-19 that has left them even further behind, the open letter claimed.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said: “When a country or region is gripped by conflict and hunger, they become mutually reinforcing. They cannot be resolved separately. Hunger and poverty combine with inequality, climate shocks, sectarian and ethnic tensions and grievances over land and resources, to spark and drive conflict.”
The current pandemic. so far, has infected 65 million people and continues to claim 70,000 lives every week, citing possibly catastrophic global famine in the coming months, while also pointing hopefully towards imminent vaccines and their deployment, reports United Nations.
270 million people are facing hunger, starvation or famine all over the world and need help from rich nations who can provide support.
The letter asks for $5.5 billion in urgent food assistance. The letter noted the funds are the equivalent of fewer than 26 hours of the $1.9 trillion of countries spend each year on the military.
“The richest countries are slashing their food aid even as millions of people go hungry; this is an extraordinary political failure. we must confront the fundamental drivers of starvation—global hunger is not about lack of food, but a lack of equality,” says Oxfam International executive director Gabriela Bucher.
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