CONFLICT PLUNGED 63 MILLION CHILDREN INTO HUNGER IN 2025

LONDON, 16 October 2025 – Of the around 118 million children plunged into hunger so far in 2025, around 63 million – over half - were forced into this situation by conflict as opposed to drought or environmental or economic pressures, according to a new data analysis by Save the Children on World Food Day. [1]  

Save the Children analysed data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the world’s leading authority on hunger monitoring, and found that conflict was a driving cause for the more severe forms of hunger in children in 2025. Of the 18 million children pushed into emergency levels of hunger in over 35 crises (IPC level 4+), 11 million, or over six in ten (61%),  were in countries where conflict is the main driver of hunger, highlighting the role of violence and war in the world’s worst food crises. [2]

While not all countries are analysed by the IPC or included in its Global Report on Food Crises, the data covers most of the world’s worst food crises.  

Globally, one in six children live in an area affected by conflict – compared to around 10% a decade ago. [3] Conflict remains the main driver of hunger worldwide and has a devastating impact on people’s ability to grow or buy food, forces families from their homes and destroys farmland and infrastructure. In some of the worst cases, starvation is used as a method of warfare.  

In Sudan and Gaza, conflict - coupled with severely restricted access and denials of aid - triggered famine classifications in 2024 and 2025 respectively, forcing children into the most extreme forms of hunger. Over half a million people in Gaza, and 638,000 people in Sudan - half of which are children in both places - face catastrophic hunger and a heightened risk of death, while around half a million more children in Gaza and 3.8 million in Sudan were found to be  just one step away from catastrophe in IPC4. [4]  

Hannah Stephenson, Save the Children’s head of advocacy for hunger and nutrition said:

“2025 has been a devastating year for the children living in the world’s worst conflict zones, with conflict pushing over 60 million children into hunger, including over 11 million who face emergency levels of hunger that necessitate desperate survival measures to stave off the risk of death.  

“In the twenty-first century, famine is manmade and preventable. No child should die because of hunger or malnutrition today. Without enough food or the right nutrition, children can’t learn, play, or grow. They should be safe to explore with their friends or expanding their minds in class, not worrying about where to find their next meal.

“The international community has the power to stop hunger crises by seeking an end to the conflicts to drive them, fiercely protecting and investing in the first 1,000 days where action can make all the difference, and building more resilient food and health systems.  Ending hunger requires urgent political solutions to resolve these conflicts and guarantee unrestricted humanitarian access.”

Save the Children has been providing life-saving nutritional support, including cash transfers to shore up the safety nets available to families in crisis, to children for more than 100 years. Between 2022 and 2024, Save the Children supported 43.5 million children and their families globally to aim to prevent malnutrition, but this support is now at risk.

 
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