UN Secretary-General warns of shameful famine in Sudan and Gaza

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the famine in Sudan and Gaza as a ‘shameful milestone’ during a UN Security Council session on global food security. He reported that 2025 has seen the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II, contributing to record-breaking global hunger levels with at least 266 million people facing acute food insecurity.

Violence is identified as the primary driver of hunger in 12 of the 13 most affected regions. Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme, highlighted how regional conflicts disrupt global supply chains through three critical maritime bottlenecks: the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Black Sea.

Skau noted that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have caused fertilizer availability to plummet and oil prices to rise by 36 percent since the conflict in Iran began. In Sudan, staple food prices have surged nearly 40 percent since February. To address these issues, Guterres proposed a time-limited mechanism to build trust through the neutral verification and registration of fertilizer transport ships.