Kamal Ghorui
While missiles arc across the skies of the Middle East and oil tankers idle at chokepoints, a quieter catastrophe is unfolding—one measured not in headlines, but in the wasting bodies of children.
While the UN is ineffective in today’s wars, it does raise some conscience, collective consciousness. At least, it provides data—the world of hunger, children without food, and starvation leads to death—that is millions– when nobody cares.
I am not here to cover the war, that bloody footage and bombs that surprise the technological advances. My consciousness looks at the impact, the battlefield playground for some, and on the other side, the hunger, malnutrition, starvation, and death of millions, especially children. It hurts. Could we give some of the money to them out of the wars? And, wars like these, so unnecessary!
Approximately 181 million children under five worldwide face severe food poverty, with malnutrition linked to nearly half of all child deaths. Driven by conflict, climate, and poverty, 8 million children are at immediate risk of starvation. Over 400 million children live in extreme poverty, with severe stunting and wasting causing lifelong impairment or death.
War and mortality: Nearly 5 million children under five die annually (as of 2024), with malnutrition as a leading underlying cause. A child dies every 15 seconds due to acute malnutrition
In Sudan, hunger is not a looming threat; it is already a death sentence for hundreds of thousands.
More than 700,000 children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. They are not casualties of drought alone, nor of logistical failure. They are victims of a global system that continues to fund war at a scale that makes the cost of saving them look trivial.
Consider the arithmetic of destruction. The ongoing Israel-Iran war is costing Israel roughly $320 million every single day—$6.4 billion in just 20 days. The United States, deeply engaged in the conflict, is spending about $1 billion daily, totaling $12 billion in a little over two weeks.
Now set that beside what it would take to prevent mass starvation.
The World Food Programme needs $700 million immediately just to continue operations through mid-2026. A total of $1.5 billion could feed 6 million people for six months. In other words, less than two days of U.S. war spending could sustain millions of lives. Less than a week of combined military expenditure could pull an entire region back from famine.
This is not a question of capacity. It is a question of choice.’
Unnecessary war
This war turns out to be ‘unnecessary.’ Neither Hezbollah nor Houthis could be stopped; their terrorist activities continue, nor could Iran be subdued in this conflict. Neither Israel nor Palestine could achieve the lasting peace as aimed for in this conflict.
The ripple effects of war are amplifying this crisis far beyond the battlefield. The near shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows—has triggered what the International Energy Agency calls the largest supply disruption in history. With 20 million barrels a day effectively removed from global circulation, energy prices have surged, dragging fertiliser costs with them and threatening agricultural production worldwide.
Asia, which depends on over 80% of the oil and LNG passing through the strait, is especially vulnerable. Meanwhile, countries already on the brink are being pushed closer to collapse. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the Middle East could see GDP shrink by 3.7% to 6% within a month of sustained conflict—a contraction of up to $194 billion. These are not abstract losses; they translate into lost jobs, shrinking food access, and deepening poverty.
Closer home, today, gas prices increase, food will be scarce, and the burden will be laid on those who know nothing about wars, mean nothing out of arms trade or deals out of wars.
Even global economic stability is under severe strain now. Gita Gopinath of the International Monetary Fund has warned that rising oil prices could shave up to 0.4 percentage points off global growth. Central banks like the Federal Reserve now face an impossible balancing act: fight inflation fueled by war-driven energy shocks while avoiding an economic slowdown.
But the harshest burden will not fall on wealthy economies. Poorer nations will be priced out of energy markets altogether, unable to compete for dwindling supplies. Food production will falter. Supply chains will fracture. Fragile states will become more unstable.
And in places like Sudan, children will die.
There is a moral obscenity in the contrast: billions spent to destroy, while millions are denied the relatively modest funds needed to survive. Hunger on this scale is not inevitable. It is engineered by neglect, by political priorities, and by the diversion of resources into conflict.
Ending hunger in places like Sudan, which is just a representation of many other countries from sub-Saharan to the Indian subcontinent, will require massive, urgent funding. But more than that, it demands a reordering of global priorities. Every delay, every underfunded appeal, every diverted dollar carries a human cost that cannot be justified.
War has always been expensive. What is unprecedented now is how clearly we can see the trade-offs. The bombs are hot, the budgets are vast, and the consequences are immediate.
So is the choice: continue financing destruction at historic levels, or invest—decisively and urgently—in keeping children alive. And especially, this ongoing war, which is building a catastrophe already, must stop. Or let the children die of hunger. Your choice!
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