hunger crisis

Starvation is being used as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians, Oxfam said today as it renewed its call for food, water, fuel and other essentials to be allowed to enter.  

Oxfam water engineers are having to drill deeper, more expensive and harder-to-maintain water boreholes used by some of the poorest communities around the world, more often now only to find dry, depleted or polluted reservoirs. 

Today, EU leaders met in Brussels to discuss the implications of the Ukraine war on food security. In response, Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam EU food expert said:  “EU leaders must learn from this moment. Only by taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, can they avoid copy-pasting the same policies which led to the food price crisis of 2007-2008, and which have led to the one the world faces today.  

Nearly two out of every five families in Yemen buy food and medicines using debt, according to Oxfam research published today. 

Oxfam warns that over six million people from farming families in Zambia are facing acute food shortages and malnutrition until next growing season, which is twelve months away, due to a severe drought, exacerbated by climate change and El Nino, which has caused massive crop failures for half of the nation’s “planted area”. 

Two years since the escalation of the war in Ukraine, more than 10,500 civilians have been killed, including 587 children, as constant bombardments, mines, and drone attacks have left a generation traumatized, displaced, and fearful for their lives, said Oxfam together with 50 other humanitarian agencies, today.  

In response to the outcome of COP28, Oxfam International’s Climate Change Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi said:

“Everyone fighting against the global climate crisis has little to celebrate from this disappointing COP28. Its final outcome is grossly inadequate. Oil, coal and gas won again, but they had to struggle harder to do so and their era is nearing its end." 
 

As global greenhouse emissions continue to rise, and climate change wreaks more havoc upon the people and places least responsible for the problem, rich polluting countries are now three years overdue on their promise to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries.

Oxfam is deeply disappointed by today’s donors’ dismally inadequate pledges to East Africa’s crisis; a protracted crisis which continues to be woefully underfunded.