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The Hunger Games
April 26, 2017

One famine is one too many, but four are now imminent. 20 million people across Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, and northeastern Nigeria face starvation, with even more requiring humanitarian assistance. The sheer scale of the tragedy contributes to what the UN has called the largest humanitarian disaster since World War II. Why now? Although each country’s crisis has unique direct causes, they all spring from the fracture and failure of the international community. The lack of meaningful climate action has increased both the frequency and severity of droughts. The UN’s inability to maintain peace has allowed endless internecine civil wars, often flooded with foreign weapons, to rage on. Wealthy countries have provided but a small fraction of the necessary funds for life-saving aid, revealing the deficit of global ethos. We are more connected than ever, but the pull of solidarity lags far behind, leaving millions of innocents starving in the gap.