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30-05-2026
UNITED NATIONS: The continuing US-Israel war on Iran has compounded other global disasters to drive record numbers of people into hunger at a time when funding to combat famine has fallen dramatically, the head of the UN World Food Program has said.
The WFP says 363 million people around the world are now at risk of acute hunger, 45 million of them as a result of conflict in the Middle East and the consequent oil price spike.
The surge in need comes against the backdrop of a cut in funding last year by a third, with the US, the largest donor by far, cutting its contribution by more than half.
Carl Skau, the WFP’s acting executive director since its former leader Cindy McCain stepped down for health reasons earlier this year, said the huge gap between needs and funding had forced the organization to cut programs supporting populations in food emergencies so as to focus on those already facing catastrophic famine.
“We take from the hungry to give to the starving. That’s the reality,” Skau told the Guardian. “Much of this is driven by conflict. Last year, we had two famines declared. That hasn’t happened in decades, so these are historic levels of hunger.”
The two famines declared in 2025 were in Gaza and Sudan. The situation in Gaza has improved slightly since the October ceasefire, while Sudan continues to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with pockets of famine persisting in parts of Darfur and South Kordofan.
“On the funding side, we had a drop of nearly 40% year on year,” Skau said, adding that it immediately affected staffing levels, particularly in Afghanistan and Yemen, where the Trump administration has cut off all emergency food funding. “We had to let go of 5,000 people in Afghanistan. It meant we went from supporting 10 million to 2 million. It was a huge, huge drop last year.”
More than 300 million people were already facing acute hunger globally before the US and Israel started a war with Iran in February, which led to Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz and then a US counter-blockade on Iranian shipping.
The WFP estimated earlier in the Iran war that if oil prices remained above $100, 45 million more people would face acute food shortages. The price of Brent crude fell below that benchmark in mid-May, but only after weeks in March and May when it was well above $100. It still costs 30% more than its prewar average and could rise again. The war and the Hormuz closure have had several effects on global hunger and the WFP’s capacity to prevent people from dying from famine. Most directly, it drives up food prices, mostly because of transport costs.
“The price of food and energy is so closely correlated that in some places if the price of energy goes up 30%, food inflation almost meets that,” Skau said. “In a least developed country, amongst the most vulnerable, they’re already spending all their money on food, and so that means they eat 30% or 40% less.”
The spike in oil prices also directly affects WFP efforts to get food to the most desperately hungry. More of its operating costs have to go towards transport, and some aid routes have been blocked.
For example, border tensions with the Taliban government in Afghanistan in recent months led Pakistan to close border crossings, blocking the usual route for food aid. The Gulf conflict has since closed its second longest border, with Iran, so the WFP has had to resort to long and costly land routes.
Skau said 85,000 tons of food aid intended for Afghanistan had been stuck on the Pakistan border for months, then rerouted to Dubai, only to be stuck there when the Iran war broke out. The WFP then sent it through Turkey and across the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan. It was due to arrive last week, seven months late. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
