The UN secretary-general warned on Tuesday that four out of every five of the world’s hungriest people live in the Gaza Strip, where “nobody has anything to eat” and warned that deliberately starving civilians could constitute a war crime.
During a high-level UN Security Council debate on “the impact of climate change and food insecurity on the maintenance of international peace and security,” António Guterres stated that “where there is war, there is famine,” whether due to displacement people or the destruction of agriculture or damage to infrastructure, whether as a result of a deliberate policy of denial.
Climate and conflict are the main causes of acute food shortages for nearly 174 million people in 2022, the UN leader said.
“I am alarmed to report that our world today is replete with examples of the devastating relationship between hunger and conflict,” he said, citing Gaza as one example.
“No one has anything to eat in the Gaza Strip. Of the 700,000 hungriest people in the world, four out of every five live on this small strip of land,” he emphasized.
In Syria, the Secretary-General noted, nearly 13 million people go to bed hungry after a decade of war and a terrible earthquake; and in Myanmar, conflict and political instability have reversed progress towards ending hunger.