UN expert warns of wartime hunger as 1.4 million face catastrophic food insecurity

UN special rapporteur Sofía Monsalve Suárez warned the General Assembly’s Third Committee on 16 October that famine was resurging and hunger was being used as a weapon of war. At the same session, other independent experts raised concerns about the treatment of young protesters and barriers to humanitarian aid for LGBT people. [1][2]

The scale of the food crisis is stark, though the figures cited at the meeting describe 2025, not the situation on the day of the debate. An assessment presented by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre counted 1.4 million people in the most severe category of acute food insecurity, known as Catastrophe, across Haiti, Mali, the Gaza Strip, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. That was up from about 155,000 people in 2016. Famine was confirmed in parts of Gaza and Sudan; the Catastrophe count does not mean famine was confirmed throughout all six places. [5]

The same assessment counted 266 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 47 countries and territories — 22.9% of the population it examined. Those figures measure the severity of hunger, not how many people were deliberately starved or who was responsible. Nor does the lower total than in 2024, when 296 million people were counted across 53 countries and territories, show an improvement on its own: data availability and country coverage fell, while the share of the population assessed rose from 22.3% to 22.9%. [5]

On protest rights, special rapporteur Gina Romero said young activists faced stigma, surveillance and repression, and urged governments to give them a meaningful role in decisions. Her report drew on 190 submissions and consultations with more than 500 young activists and youth organisations. India disputed her account of retaliation or stigma against young people discussing mental health and gender justice. Israel rejected findings concerning Palestinian young people, saying its law-enforcement operations targeted criminal offences, violence or terrorism rather than political activism. [1][3]