Extreme Hunger Could Kill 600,000 Children in War Zones This Year | WPN World People News

● Hunger on the rise in world’s most brutal war zones

● 2 in 3 infants with life-threatening malnutrition set to go untreated this year

● Alarming shortfalls in funding for conflict zones; spike in obstructions to delivery of humanitarian aid

More than half a million children in conflict zones could die from extreme hunger before the end of the year, new research by Save the Children shows.

The global humanitarian organization estimates 4,500,000 children under the age of five will need treatment for life-threatening malnutrition this year in the most dangerous conflict zones for children, an increase of nearly 20% since 2016.

But at current rates, two in three of these severely malnourished children are set to miss out on vital treatment this year, with 590,000 expected to die as a result.

That’s an average of 1,600 children under the age of five dying from extreme hunger every day, or one child every minute.

Save the Children’s new analysis comes as humanitarian agencies grapple with chronic funding shortfalls to many UN emergency appeals for conflict zones and as warring parties acting in defiance of international humanitarian law increasingly prevent supplies from reaching children in need of help.

Global hunger is on the rise after declining for more than two decades, with the UN citing conflict as the main reason for that reversal.

Severe Acute Malnutrition, or SAM, is the most extreme and dangerous form of undernutrition. Symptoms include jutting ribs and loose skin, with visible wasting of body tissue; or swelling in the ankles, feet and belly as blood vessels leak fluid under the skin.

Severely malnourished children also have substantially reduced immune systems and are far more likely than healthy children to contract and die of diseases like pneumonia, cholera and malaria. Even where children survive, the effects of malnutrition can be life-long and affect physical and mental development.

Carolyn Miles, President & CEO of Save the Children, said:

“In 2018 no child should be dying from hunger. But the number of hungry people on our planet has started to rise again. This is shameful. Hunger is not inevitable.

“Many of these children are in warzones. Time after time we are seeing starvation used as a weapon of war when deliveries of food are obstructed by the warring parties in places like Yemen, Syria and South Sudan.

“We must stop this dangerous trend. All warring parties must abide by their obligations under international law to allow humanitarian access. We also need to see an increase in funding from the international community to save more children’s lives.”

Source: Save the Children