Hunger and War—Why the World Can’t Look Away | Opinion

Over the past 10 months, I’ve deployed to some of the world’s most acute humanitarian emergencies: Sudan, Gaza, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I went to support our frontline staff and bear witness to the scale of suffering. These crises are all fueled by armed conflict, and while each has its own history and context, the toll on everyday people—especially women and girls—is devastatingly consistent.

Nearly 300 million people around the world are facing extreme hunger, according to the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises recently released—a threefold increase in hunger since 2016. The leading cause of starvation is armed conflict, which continues to displace communities, disrupt food production, and block humanitarian aid. The report’s data ends in December 2024, but continued violence this year, along with aid cuts, means even more are suffering.

In the searing heat of eastern Sudan, I met two young girls, Lujain and Fajr. Before the war erupted, they were students in Khartoum, one dreaming of exploring the world as an airline pilot, and another aspiring to become a heart surgeon. Today, they live in a displacement camp hundreds of miles from home, where a single meal a day is a luxury. Their dreams haven’t disappeared—but they’ve been deferred, maybe indefinitely.

Everywhere I went, I encountered women and girls like them, all of whom bore the weight of multiple losses—loved ones, homes, regular meals, futures. As they grappled with all they had lost, questions lingered in the air, unspoken but unmistakable: “Are we less than human? Is that why the world has turned away?”

These are questions I’ve been thinking about, especially as some of the world’s wealthiest nations dramatically scale back humanitarian aid, and as atrocities persist and are often met with silence. The suffering I’ve witnessed and the stories I’ve heard are not abstract—they are personal. Lujain and Fajr want to learn, to feel safe, to build something with their lives. These are not extraordinary aspirations. They are universal to us all.

And yet, if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that this shared humanity is not always recognized—let alone protected. Aid is delayed or denied. Peace efforts stall. International attention fades. The result is a dangerous erosion of empathy.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by numbers like 300 million. But statistics don’t move us. Stories do. They remind us of our shared humanity and can move us to action.

Outside Goma in the DRC, I met a young, displaced mother who had been raped at 14. To feed her daughter, she sold the child’s only piece of clothing. She recounted this quietly, surrounded by women who had endured similar horrors. As she spoke, I wept. And when I looked up, I saw others weeping, too. In that shared grief, there was also something else: a moment of connection. A reminder of what binds us.

In Gaza, a woman told me she had fled her home 21 times. When I met her, she was pregnant, living in a bombed building with her husband and two young daughters. For them, daily life revolved around the struggle to find food. This was a story I heard constantly: to eat and survive after being forcibly uprooted, families must endure conditions that strip them of their dignity.

The world must understand how urgent the situation is in these places. Seeing it was shocking. Humanitarian aid is absolutely critical. Emergency food, water, medicine, and other critical supplies literally keep people alive. Every delay in assistance, every cut in funding, has life and death implications. There is no more time.

Humanitarian aid is a last resort, a bridge to something more permanent. People don’t want to survive indefinitely in limbo. They want peace. They want the chance to rebuild, on their own terms. As one woman in the DRC told me, “What we need is peace. The rest we can build.”

Ending hunger requires more than aid—it requires courage and political will to bring peace. It means recognizing conflict as the engine behind so much human suffering and committing to policies that prevent it. It means listening to those living through these crises—and trusting them to shape the solution. The tools to prevent and end conflict exist. The mechanisms to protect civilians from starvation are in place.

To all the Lujains and Fajrs, you are not forgotten. Your stories stay with us. Your dreams matter. Your lives matter. And the world has a responsibility—to see you, to hear you, and to act. Because what’s at stake is your future and our collective humanity.

Dr. Deepmala Mahla is CARE’s chief humanitarian officer. For over two decades, she has contributed to the design and implementation of humanitarian and development programs in some of the most complex and fragile environments, in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Mahla is a strong advocate on behalf of vulnerable communities and for the protection of aid workers.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.