As wars spread, the global food system unravels

A family with four children abandoned its farm in Somalia after armed groups arrived and demanded payments for the right to continue cultivating the land. They walked roughly 100 kilometers to a displacement camp. One of the children died along the way. Carl Skau, the acting head of the World Food Program, met the family during a visit to Somalia last week. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council debate on conflict and hunger on Tuesday, he described their ordeal as one example of a broader phenomenon unfolding across war zones: the “vicious conflict-hunger cycle,” in which war produces hunger and hunger, in turn, creates conditions for further violence.

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