The World Counts Wars in Days and Hunger in Decades

When hunger is the silent war

The world counts wars in days. A battle breaks out, and the death toll is written before the week is over. Hunger is different. Hunger is counted in decades. It is a war without gunfire, yet it leaves more graves behind than many wars we read about.

Every year hunger takes more than 9 million lives. That is more than the deaths from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. In Africa alone, one in five people goes to bed hungry. That is more than 300 million people, almost the size of the entire United States.

When war strikes, we hear the numbers. In Sudan, more than 26,000 people have died in direct fighting since 2023. But when you look deeper, twice as many have been lost to hunger and disease because of the war. Their deaths are quieter. Their names rarely make the front page.

In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, experts estimate 150,000 to 200,000 died of hunger during the conflict. Even after the ceasefire, thousands more still died because fields were ruined, markets were empty, and food never reached the people who needed it most.

The famine of the 1980s in Ethiopia took up to a million lives. Many still remember the images of children with empty bowls. That famine was not only about drought. It was about war, failed policy, and the silence of those who looked away.

Hunger is not only neglect. At times it is used as a weapon. Food is stolen and sold at high prices. Grain is stored away for those in power. Aid is blocked or withheld to starve entire villages into submission. Hunger often walks beside war. It is not only the quiet war. It can also be the chosen weapon.

War may stop. A treaty may be signed. But hunger remains long after. Farms are burned. Seeds are lost. Farmers flee. Generations lose knowledge of how to grow and feed their communities. Hunger is not healed in one season.

There are signs of progress. Across Africa, farmers are planting crops that survive harsher climates. Cooperatives are building new markets. Technology is helping track shortages faster. Voices from the ground are stronger than before.

Yet the comparison remains. The world measures war in days. Hunger stretches over decades. Both claim lives, but only one is counted in tomorrow’s headlines.

Sources

  1. Concern Worldwide – World Hunger Facts: https://concernusa.org/news/world-hunger-facts
  2. UN FAO / WHO joint report on global hunger (2024): https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stubbornly-high-for-three-consecutive-years-as-global-crises-deepen–un-report
  3. Sudan War death toll – Wikipedia (Sudanese Civil War 2023–present): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023–present)
  4. Health Policy Watch – Disease and hunger drive invisible death toll in Sudan: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/disease-hunger-drive-invisible-death-toll-in-sudan-war
  5. AP News – Hunger in Tigray even after ceasefire: https://apnews.com/article/6d5a15fa7cda213b86f41c87b1a185e7
  6. Wikipedia – Famine in northern Ethiopia (2020–present): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_northern_Ethiopia_(2020–present)
  7. Wikipedia – 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983–1985_famine_in_Ethiopia

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