The lines of refugees fleeing Sudan in search of food and safety show how the war is increasing the number of severely hungry people around the world. Indeed, protracted wars and conflicts, from Yemen and Syria to Afghanistan, have already become a major factor in the global food security crisis.

According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 345 million people today face severe food insecurity, more than double the number in 2019. The international community is struggling to cope with new conflicts, extreme weather and signs of donor fatigue among major donors.

“What we are facing is really a wildfire spreading food insecurity,” says Martin Frick, director of the WFP office in Berlin.

Catherine Maldonado, senior director of food security at Mercy Corps, says she is concerned that the world’s understandable focus on crises like Sudan’s “means we’re not talking enough about what we could do now to prevent places who are already in a difficult situation. point from reaching the tipping point.

“We cannot afford to lose sight of these efforts that are helping communities on the brink,” she says, “lest in the coming years we see such an increase in the number of people who have crossed the tipping point to acute hunger that we have seen in this year.”

In the weeks since the outbreak of hostilities in Sudan, large groups of women and children have been fleeing across the border into Chad in search of food and safety.

Chadians and international aid organizations already on the scene to address the food shortage in Chad itself are doing their best to feed and shelter the refugees, even if it means only a bowl of watery porridge and a sheet tied to the branches of a tree.

And as the war rages on, the scene in Chad is being repeated in many of Sudan’s other neighbors as refugees pour into countries in the Horn of Africa that are already facing growing famine from conflict, drought and economic turmoil.

The growing lines of refugees show how the war in Sudan – a surprise to most of the world when the armed forces and a powerful paramilitary organization began fighting in the capital Khartoum a month ago – is increasing the number of severely hungry people around the world.

“What we are facing is really a wildfire spreading food insecurity,” says Martin Frick, director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Berlin office.

In an interview with the BBC for the documentary Diana, 7 Days, Prince Harry called the paparazzi “a pack of dogs” who constantly hounded his mother. “Every time she went out, a crowd of people were waiting for her,” he said. “I mean the pack of dogs chasing her, stalking her, harassing her, calling her names, spitting on her, trying to get a reaction to get this picture of her lashing out.”