Every two seconds a child is born into the world destined to suffer from hunger. In just one year, 2024, there were 18.2 million: more than a third of the Italian population. A number that weighs like a boulder and tells of a tragedy that makes no noise but claims victims every day, in silence. It is acute malnutrition, which alone is responsible for approximately half of the deaths of children under five in the world.
On the eve of World Food Daywhich is celebrated on October 16th, Save the Children relaunch the campaign “Hunger emergency”to call on world leaders to address the root causes of food insecurity and build more resilient health and social protection systems. “It is unacceptable that, every two seconds, a child is born into the world destined to suffer from hunger,” he says Daniela FatarellaGeneral Director of Save the Children Italy. «Malnutrition is a silent killer that drains the energy of the little ones and deprives them of a future».
Behind the numbers there are faces, names, broken childhoods. In Gaza, according to the United Nations, 80% of starvation deaths involve children under five years of age: at least 132 thousand are now at risk of death from acute malnutrition. The total siege transformed food into a weapon of war and hunger into an instrument of control. It is the first time that a famine has been officially declared in the Middle East: beyond half a million people in Gaza City, half are children, are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
But the Strip is not an isolated case. In South Sudan the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition rose from 2.1 to 2.3 millionthanks to the deadly intertwining of conflicts, poverty and climate change. In Syriahalf a million children suffer from chronic malnutrition, a condition that forever compromises physical and cognitive development. And in Afghanistanone of the most affected countries in the world, 3.5 million minors they risk going hungry this year, in a context of structural poverty and cuts in international aid.
According to Save the Children’s analysis, 44 million children under five years old living in conflict zones suffer from stunting of growth linked to malnutrition (stunting): more than one in three. On a global scale, in 2024 150 million of children are affected by this condition, a figure far from the global objective of reducing the number to 108 million by 2025. Hunger not only kills: it compromises growth, intelligence and life expectancy.
70% of hungry children live in Asia, 27% in Africa. In Nigeria the highest number of malnourished minors is recorded (5.4 million), followed by Democratic Republic of the Congo (4.5 million) and fromAfghanistan (3.5 million). In Somaliaa country plagued by droughts and floods, almost 1.9 million children under five years old will suffer from acute malnutrition by 2026, while in Pakistan beyond 1.4 million newborns they were born into starvation conditions in 2024 alone.
To make matters worse, the climate shocks hey cuts to international aidwhich bring health, nutrition and education programs to their knees in the poorest countries. «Over the last thirty years we have seen significant progress, but today the world is looking elsewhere. Cuts in aid, wars, obstacles to humanitarian access make the situation desperate. Urgent interventions and structural and lasting measures are needed to guarantee food, water, healthcare and protection”, continues Fatarella.
For Save the Children the Food security is a political choicenot an inevitable fate. The Organization calls on governments to address the structural causes of hunger – conflicts, inequalities, climate crisis – by guaranteeing continuous access to food and essential services, integrating nutrition into all development policies and financing climate resilience in the most fragile contexts.
When hunger strikes, the Organization’s workers they bring to the field therapeutic food and free healthcarethrough fixed clinics and mobile teams. To save a severely malnourished child, foods with a high energy content, such as High Energy Biscuits or the Plumpy Nutsa thick cream based on peanuts, vitamins and mineral salts, which requires no water or refrigeration and can literally save your life.
Save the Children works every day in the most difficult areas of the planet to guarantee the survival and future of the littlest ones. With the campaign “Hunger emergency”active until November 9th, everyone can contribute: just send an Text to 45583 to donate 2 euros, or call from a landline to donate 5 or 10 euros. A simple gesture, which can mean the difference between life and death for many children.
«Children should never wonder if they will eat, when or what. They should be free to play, grow, learn”, concludes Fatarella. “It’s time to bring them back to the center of the global agenda and forcefully relaunch the fight against malnutrition.”
