<\/p>\n
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker T\u00fcrk told the Committee on World Food Security in Rome that hunger reflected inequality and the denial of fundamental rights rather than insufficient food production. \u201cThe right to food has found its way into treaties and laws, but for too many people, it has yet to find its way onto their dinner plates,\u201d T\u00fcrk said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Households discard more than 1 billion meals daily, while 1% of farms control over 70% of global farmland.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Women farmers and Indigenous Peoples frequently lack access to land, government assistance and other resources needed to produce food and sustain livelihoods. \u201cToo much of that abundance is swallowed up by injustice and the denial of human rights,\u201d T\u00fcrk said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Conflict is driving acute hunger in 12 of the world\u2019s 13 current hunger hotspots. Restrictions on humanitarian assistance and attacks against aid workers are cutting communities off from essential support.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrk called for stronger social protection, fair taxation and agricultural policies designed to reduce poverty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Governments should also ensure equitable access to land, water and seeds while taking meaningful action against climate change. \u201cWe must do our utmost to ensure the rules of war are upheld, and hunger is never used as a method of warfare,\u201d T\u00fcrk said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Sof\u00eda Monsalve Su\u00e1rez warned that famine and acute hunger were increasing despite a decline in chronic hunger during 2025.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
About 1.4 million people across six countries face catastrophic hunger, nine times more than in 2016.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another 266 million people experience acute hunger daily, including communities in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen and Gaza. \u201cThe return of famine and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war is an unprecedented moral challenge for our generation,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez called for stronger accountability and closer coordination among the UN Security Council, human rights institutions and food-security monitoring organisations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–UN\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43346,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-48542","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48544,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48542\/revisions\/48544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}