Food security and armed conflict

Millions of people living in areas affected by armed conflict face severe and acute food insecurity – they go days without eating and it is endangering their lives. Many of them have faced seasonal food shortages before; now, however, their situation is aggravated by a constellation of dangerous factors: more intense and more frequent climate shocks (such as droughts and floods), COVID 19’s long-term effects on the economy, and, above all, armed conflict and other threats to safety, which disrupt local and global food systems. In this brief, ICRC makes recommendations to guide efforts to address the issue of food insecurity in conflict.