alarm

WFP says a ‘deepening hunger crisis’ is unfolding and that it may have to pause food aid due to record low funding.

The number of people facing emergency levels of hunger in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has nearly doubled since last year, the United Nations has warned.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday a “deepening hunger crisis” was unfolding in the region, but warned it was only able to reach a fraction of those in need due to acute funding shortages and access difficulties.

“We’re at historically low levels of funding. We’ve probably received about $150m this year,” said Cynthia Jones, country director of the WFP for the DRC, pointing to a need for $350m to help people in desperate need in the West African country.

“One in three people in DRC’s eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, and Tanganyika are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That’s over 10 million people,” Jones said.

“Of that, an alarming three million people are in emergency levels of hunger,” she told a media briefing in Geneva.

She said this higher level meant people were facing extreme gaps in food consumption and very high levels of malnutrition, adding that the numbers of people that are facing emergency levels of hunger is surging.

“It has almost doubled since last year,” said Jones. “People are already dying of hunger.”

Years-long conflict

The area has been rocked by more than a year of fighting. The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized swaths of the eastern DRC since taking up arms again in 2021, compounding a humanitarian crisis and the more than three-decade conflict in the region.

The armed group’s lightning offensive saw it capture the key eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu, near the border with Rwanda. It has set up an administration there parallel to the government in Kinshasa and taken control of nearby mines.

Rwanda has denied supporting the rebels. Both M23 and Congolese forces have been accused of carrying out atrocities.

Jones said the WFP was facing “a complete halt of all emergency food assistance in the eastern provinces” from February or March 2026.

She added that the two airports in the east, Goma and Bukavu, had been shut for months.

WFP wants an air bridge set up between neighbouring Rwanda and the eastern DRC, saying it would be a safer, faster and more effective route than from Kinshasa, on the other side of the vast nation.

In recent years, the WFP had received up to $600m in funding. In 2024, it received about $380m.

UN agencies, including the WFP, have been hit by major cuts in US foreign aid, as well as other major European donors reducing overseas aid budgets to increase defence spending.

Since April 2023, more than 12 million people have been displaced, nearly 9 million inside Sudan and over 3 million across borders. The United Nations now identifies Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 25 million people facing acute food insecurity and famine conditions already recorded in multiple areas.

These are not statistics; they are markers of systemic collapse. Mass graves, torched health facilities, and emptied towns tell the story. UN officials and independent human rights bodies have documented that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias committed genocide in Darfur, a finding echoed by the recent fall of El Fasher to RSF forces and the disturbing images that followed, underscoring the scale of brutality: civilians hunted in displacement camps, aid workers killed, humanitarian corridors severed. Each captured city tightens the noose on civilians and erodes any remaining space for lifesaving assistance.

The $4.2 billion required under the 2025 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan remains largely unfunded. Agencies, including the WFP, UNICEF, UNHCR, and IOM, warn of an imminent operational collapse. Inaction is not neutral — it accelerates mass hunger, disease, and death. Sudan’s implosion will intensify displacement, fuel illicit economies, exacerbate extremist recruitment, and heighten volatility in food and fuel supplies. The outcome is predictable: expanded violence, deteriorating governance, and prolonged economic decline across West and Central Africa.

This crisis does not end at Sudan’s borders. It reverberates across a Sahel already destabilised by insurgency, climate shocks, and hollowed-out state institutions. Since 2020, a succession of coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has entrenched military rule and normalised authoritarian recourse. Weak governance and porous borders transform humanitarian emergencies into regional security threats.

The international response must shift from caution to conviction:

• Close the funding gap immediately. Multiyear, flexible financing is essential. Underfunding today guarantees higher security and social costs tomorrow.

• Enforce accountability. Genocide determinations and credible atrocity reports demand criminal investigations, targeted sanctions, and civilian protection mechanisms. Impunity is a policy choice — and one that invites repetition.

• Reform and empower Africa’s institutions. The African Union must evolve from a consultative platform into a body capable of deterrence. Continent-wide resilience requires real incentives and penalties for unconstitutional rule, as well as rapid protection capacity. AU, ECOWAS, and the UN should align political mediation, enforcement tools, and governance support to reduce the appeal of coups masquerading as solutions.

The AU’s intervention is both urgent and crucial for the continent’s stability. Africa cannot afford perpetual crises while its people are uprooted and its natural wealth siphoned off. Sudan is a warning. The Sahel is the echo. Failure to act decisively will cement a trajectory of conflict, authoritarian drift, and economic paralysis. Accountability, protection, and reform are not aspirations; they are minimum requirements for continental stability.

MILLWALL were given a rude awakening ahead of their Championship clash with Sheffield United as their hotel was evacuated in the middle of the night.

The Lions’ squad piled onto the streets of Sheffield at 3:55am on Saturday morning when the siren started blaring out.

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It is not clear what set the alarm off, though players were left huddled outside both entrances to the Radisson Blu hotel for approximately 20 minutes while fire crew investigated the cause of the alarm.

A few players appeared bleary-eyed and fed up, while one player was overheard describing the situation as a ‘farce’.

Another FaceTimed his partner to show her his discontent at being sat on the pavement in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Millwall had made the 144-mile from south London by coach on Friday ahead of their trip to Bramall Lane.

The Lions started the season with a victory over Norwich City before being hammered by Middlesbrough 3-0 last time out.

Between those results, they did progress in the League Cup by beating Newport County 1-0 at Rodney Parade.

They will face a Sheffield United side who have endured a nightmare start to their Championship campaign, propping up the bottom of the table with bitter rivals Sheffield Wednesday.

Manager Ruben Selles confessed last week that he is already fearing for his future just three games into the job.

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His team have started the campaign with three successive defeats – including a 4-1 thrashing at home to Bristol City.

Selles said: “We know when you work and you play for Sheffield United, you know that you need to win every match.

“Then if not, and especially if it’s consecutive, then you’re going to be under massive pressure.”

Meanwhile, Millwall captain Jake Cooper is eyeing up promotion to the Premier League.

The defender has been at The Den since his move from Reading in 2017.

He said: “It would be a dream to be a Premier League player with Millwall and everything at the club is geared to get there.

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“There’s more expectation on us now because we finished well last season and the recruitment we’ve done.

“So you can see why people are getting excited.

“It’s important to have lads like Massimo (Luongo) and Alfie (Doughty), who have experience of securing promotion to the Premier League and understand what a winning culture feels like.

“Our new lads have integrated well.

“Alfie knew a few of the guys already while Massimo is very experienced and has been around the Championship for a long time.”

US nurse tells of Israeli authorities confiscating supplies of baby formula being brought into Gaza by medical workers.

One in every 10 children screened in clinics in Gaza run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is malnourished, as child hunger surges across the territory amid the continuing Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid.

Israel’s punishing prevention of aid entering Gaza has led to “severe shortages of nutrition supplies”, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday, describing the situation for starving children as “engineered and man-made”.

Lazzarini said the UN must be allowed to do its work in Gaza, particularly bringing in “humanitarian assistance at scale, including for children”.

“Any additional delay to a ceasefire will cause more deaths,” he said, noting that more than 870 starving Palestinians had been killed so far while trying to access food from the highly criticised distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the United States.

UNRWA’s communications director, Juliette Touma, told reporters in Geneva via a videolink from Amman, Jordan, that “medicine, nutrition supplies, hygiene material, fuel are all rapidly running out”.

“Our health teams are confirming that malnutrition rates are increasing in Gaza, especially since the siege was tightened more than four months ago on the second of March,” Touma said.

“One nurse that we spoke to told us that in the past, he only saw these cases of malnutrition in textbooks and documentaries,” she said.

“As malnutrition among children spreads across the war-torn enclave, UNRWA has over 6,000 trucks of food, hygiene supplies, medicine, medical supplies outside of Gaza. They are all waiting to go in,” Touma added.

“The world cannot continue to look away.”

“1 in 10 children screened by UNRWA in #Gaza is now malnourished,” UNRWA @JulietteTouma briefs the press at @UNGeneva.

Before the war, such cases were almost unheard of.

Now, Gaza’s shattered health system is overwhelmed — and aid is being blocked by the Government of Israel.… pic.twitter.com/3b8S2qONef

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 15, 2025

Since January 2024, UNRWA said it had screened more than 240,000 boys and girls under the age of five in its clinics, adding that before the war, acute malnutrition was rare in Gaza.

Andee Clark Vaughan, an emergency nurse with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA) based in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday how Israeli authorities had confiscated baby formula from medical workers entering the territory.

“Immune systems are so compromised here because of the malnutrition,” Vaughan said, describing how Palestinian mothers are so malnourished that they are unable to produce breast milk to feed their infants and forced to make difficult decisions to keep their children alive.

“What we’ve been seeing here is moms trying to do their utmost best, mixing water – which is often contaminated – with beans or lentils just to make something of sustenance to get these kids fed and get them nutrients,” Vaughan added.

On Monday, UNICEF said that last month, more than 5,800 children were diagnosed with malnutrition in Gaza, including more than 1,000 children with severe, acute malnutrition.

It said it was an increase for the fourth month in a row.