For Amina, a 28-year-old woman displaced from her Gedo village in Somalia, watching helplessly as her children go to sleep on an empty stomach has become a cruel daily reality.
“We are suffering…I do not have food for my children to eat. Some nights, I offer them water to help them sleep,” she told DevelopmentAid.
Amina’s story is far from an isolated one as one in every five people is going hungry in Africa, South of the Sahara, where the highest hunger levels globally have been reached.
Despite some improvements in global hunger scores over the past two decades, the situation remains dire with five countries – Burundi, Madagascar, Chad, South Sudan, and Somalia –registering alarming hunger levels, according to the 2024 Global Hunger Index. Undernourishment, malnutrition, and human misery are part of the heartbreaking reality that people in these countries are facing on a daily basis.
Alarming hunger levels in Africa
According to the 2024 Global Hunger Index, in these five African countries, more than one in 10 children die before their fifth birthday. Africa has recorded the highest neonatal mortality rate (40%) in the world.
These countries are the worst-hit areas globally with the 2024 report describing hunger levels there as “alarming”. Somalia is ranked as the hungriest nation with the second-highest rate of undernourishment in the world, second to North Korea.
Twenty-eight-year-old Amina seems to be more affected by the ongoing devastating drought in Somalia rather than by the three-decade-long war there.
“The drought has taken everything from us; there is no harvest. My children no longer go to school because I do not have anything to give them. We are now depending on well-wishers,” she said.
In the meantime, families in Southern Madagascar survive on cactus leaves and have no other option than for their children to abandon school in order to go to work to make ends meet.
“It is very difficult to carry water from the river to the trucks, but if we do not have money, we do not have food. I dropped out of school to be a water carrier so that I can help my mum get some money for food,” explained Malok, a 13-year-old boy from Madagascar.
Political instability, internal conflicts, forced displacement and devastating floods are among the main reasons behind food insecurity, according to the report.
Women and girls are bearing a particularly heavy burden as they have no other choice than to undertake multiple jobs to survive and travel long distances to fetch water or wood, often being subjected to violence while doing so. Discriminatory access to resources further hinders their ability to cope with crises.
Funding shortfalls
International relief organizations have consistently urged for more funding to address food insecurity in the region. As of 2024, South Sudan has achieved just 57% of its target funding, while Somalia has received about 46%, leaving these nations more vulnerable.
See also: World’s largest hunger crisis in South Sudan amidst a forgotten war
Humanitarian actors have warned that without support, the situation could worsen further.
“This brutal war [in South Sudan] has uprooted millions of people, forcing them to leave their homes, schools, and jobs behind in search of safety…People need humanitarian aid now and support to rebuild their lives…The stability of the whole region hangs in the balance,” commented Flippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
