Empty stomachs are now weapons of war. Across West Africa, hunger is no longer just a human tragedy. It has become a tool in the hands of armed groups who promise food and wages to the desperate.
Hunger on the March
The United Nations says more than 40 million people in West and Central Africa cannot meet daily food needs. Another 3.4 million face emergency levels of hunger. In Nigeria alone, 31.8 million people are at risk of acute shortages as violence drives farmers from their fields and prices rise.
Children are hit hardest. The Sahel holds 6.9 million children under five who are acutely malnourished. Of these, 1.4 million are in severe danger. Aid groups warn the next lean season could be catastrophic if support is cut again.
Desperation and Recruitment
Militant groups take advantage of this vacuum. A United Nations study found that one in four recruits did not join for religion, but for money and survival.
In villages around Lake Chad, Boko Haram offers salaries, marriage prospects, and food. Young men, often unemployed, accept. One villager put it simply: “We have no schools, no jobs. When they offer a way to feed our families, what else can we do?”
In Ghana’s north, militants cross from Burkina Faso to supply poor border communities. They hand out food and buy loyalty where governments are absent. In Benin, fighters linked to al-Qaeda struck at Point Triple in 2025, killing dozens of soldiers. Analysts say weak borders and hungry populations leave the door wide open.
Conflict and Hunger: A Deadly Circle
One of the hardest-hit regions is the Sahel, stretching across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, and northern Nigeria. Many people blame droughts for the food crisis here. But new studies point elsewhere.
Research published in Nature Food shows that while droughts continue to hurt, their effect has stayed steady. What has grown is violence. Fighting has displaced millions, destroyed harvests, and pushed food prices beyond reach. Aid convoys are blocked or attacked.
At the same time, proper aid groups continue to work in the region, as shown in the photo below of a World Food Programme distribution site in Bamako, Mali. They provide vital relief and are often the only lifeline communities can count on. But their reach is limited, and when supply breaks down, extremist groups step in to fill the gap.
The outcome is a vicious cycle. Conflict creates hunger. Hunger fuels recruitment. Recruitment drives more conflict.
Photo attribution: DFID – UK Department for International Development, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Hearts and Hunger Strategy
In other parts of the world, groups like Hamas have shown how hunger can be turned into a weapon. In Gaza, Hamas has not only fought a war but also run charities, food networks, and clinics. These services built loyalty in communities where the state could not provide.
The lesson is plain. People stand with whoever puts bread on the table. It does not mean every recruit joins because of hunger. But when basic needs are filled by militants, resistance weakens.
This same model is now being repeated in West Africa. Boko Haram, ISWAP, and al-Qaeda affiliates hand out food, offer small wages, or give protection to families left behind by governments. What Hamas did in Gaza with clinics and food, these groups do in the Sahel with rice, millet, and a little cash.
If hunger and poverty are not addressed with the urgency given to wars and disasters, a slow breeding ground will form. It will be built on exploitation and desperation. Ask yourself this. If your child was starving, and the only food came from the hand of a fighter, would you refuse?
A Warning Ignored
Governments treat hunger as charity work. But it is a security issue. Every sack of grain denied, every child left malnourished, is a chance for extremists to gain another follower. Ignoring hunger is not neutral. It is surrender.
What Can Be Done
- Put food at the center of security plans.
- Support local farmers with markets, tools, and safe roads.
- Keep schools open and youth employed, even at low wages.
- Stop treating aid as temporary. Build reliable systems that reach villages before militants do.
Hunger is not only a human rights crisis. It is a battlefield. To leave people starving is to arm the very groups that thrive on despair.
Sources
Featured photo attribution: Tim Kubacki, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
United Nations Development Programme. Hope for Better Jobs Eclipses Religious Ideology as Main Driver of Recruitment by Violent Extremist Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. 2023.
https://www.undp.org/press-releases/hope-better-jobs-eclipses-religious-ideology-main-driver-recruitment-violent-extremist-groups-sub-saharan-africa
Reuters. Insecurity, Rising Costs Push 31.8 Million Nigerians into Acute Food Shortage. August 27, 2024.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/insecurity-rising-costs-push-31-mln-nigerians-into-acute-food-shortage-study-2024-08-27
Associated Press. West and Central Africa Facing Record Hunger, U.N. Warns. April 4, 2024.
https://apnews.com/article/304b66ef7b9b56262fe1114a4b28c7e6
Le Monde. Child Malnutrition Soaring in Sahel, Aid Groups Warn. April 18, 2024.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2024/04/18/child-malnutrition-soaring-in-sahel-without-aid-consequences-will-be-extremely-grave_6668792_114.html
Le Monde Afrique. Boko Haram Lures Young People with No Prospects from the Lake Chad Area. August 9, 2025.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2025/08/09/boko-haram-lures-young-people-with-no-prospects-from-the-lake-chad-area_6744214_124.html
Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dangerously Hungry: The Link Between Food Insecurity and Conflict.2022.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/dangerously-hungry-link-between-food-insecurity-and-conflict
Columbia Climate School. Warfare, Not Climate, Driving Resurgent Hunger in Africa, Says Study. July 2023.
https://lamont.columbia.edu/news/warfare-not-climate-driving-resurgent-hunger-africa-says-study
Reuters. Ghana’s North Becomes a Supply Zone for Sahel Jihadis, Sources Say. October 24, 2024.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ghana-sahel-jihadis-find-refuge-supplies-sources-say-2024-10-24
Taylor & Francis Online. Food, Terrorism, and the Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab Nexus. 2025.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2025.2457427
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Why Child Soldiering Persists in Africa. February 25, 2024.
https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2024/02/25/why-child-soldiering-persists-in-africa
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