Many conflict zones desperately need humanitarian aid, but increasingly, one or both parties in a conflict may block relief operations from reaching starving populations or even carry out attacks against humanitarian organizations. Alternately, if people remain in their homes, surrounding armies can trap people inside a village, city, or neighborhood and deprive them of food, medicine, and other vital resources until they surrender. Refugees are often vulnerable to acute food insecurity as well as disease. Additionally, wars commonly trigger the displacement of huge numbers of people, cutting them off from their food supplies and livelihoods. Conflict can cause food shortages and the severe disruption of economic activities, threatening the means of survival of entire populations.
Warring parties may plunder an enemy’s food supply, deliberately destroying farms, livestock, and other civilian infrastructure. Wars are inherently violent and harmful, but destruction of resources can sometimes create more catastrophic harm than bombs and bullets. Among the 815 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition in 2016, 60 percent lived in areas affected by armed conflict. Experts believe conflicts and wars, along with weather events associated with climate change, are the main reasons for this setback. Worldwide, the number of hungry and malnourished people had been declining for at least two decades but began rising after 2015. It demands parties in conflict permit humanitarian aid workers unimpeded access to populations in dire need and states that “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare may constitute a war crime.” Ending hunger and extreme food insecurity features among the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015. Aimed at countries currently engaged in international or civil wars, the resolution implores all parties to leave food stocks, farms, markets, and other distribution mechanisms intact. It was the first time the Council had ever addressed the issue, acknowledging a threat to the lives of tens of millions of people. On May 24 2018, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war.
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