UN food agencies warn acute hunger will worsen in 13 hot spots as famine risks rise

People fill water containers at a free distribution point amid water outages in Khartoum, Sudan, May 18, 2026.

ROME — The United Nations’ food agencies warned Wednesday that acute hunger is set to worsen across 13 global hot spots in the coming months, with conflict, funding shortages and climate shocks pushing millions closer to famine.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) said in a new joint report that conditions are expected to deteriorate between June and November 2026, with around 266 million people already facing high levels of acute food insecurity, and called for urgent action.

“The warnings in this report cannot be ignored,” said WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau. “Without action now, millions more are expected to face worsening levels of hunger in the months ahead, pushing some closer to famine.”

Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip remain the hot spots of greatest concern, the report said, while Nigeria and Somalia have been newly added to that category as conditions worsen and famine risks rise. Seven other countries are also on the hotspot list — Afghanistan, Congo, Myanmar, Haiti, Mali and new additions Lebanon and Madagascar.

The agencies said conflict and violence are the main drivers of hunger in nearly all the hotspots, compounded by economic shocks, deep cuts to humanitarian funding and the expected impact of an El Niño weather pattern, which could bring droughts and floods to vulnerable regions. They warned that additional pressures, including spillover effects from the Middle East conflict and an Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, are worsening the outlook by disrupting markets, livelihoods and aid access.

Funding for food assistance and related programs has dropped sharply — by about 59 per cent since 2022 — even as needs have surged, the report said.

There was a piece of good news on funding Tuesday: The United States pledged $800 million to WFP which the agency said will help more that 38 million people in at least 37 countries at “a moment of unprecedented global need driving hunger to record levels.”

But WFP’s more than $10 billion appeal for 2026 still remains severely underfunded.

For years, the U.S. Agency for International Development had been the backbone of humanitarian aid around the globe. But last year, the Trump administration abolished the agency, cutting $60 billion in overall assistance. Under a reset in December, the U.S. has restored funding to WFP and just announced $218 million in assistance to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.

WFP’s Skau called the new U.S. donation “a lifeline to reach people on the brink of famine, provide nutritional support to mothers and children and position food to prevent millions from slipping further into extreme hunger.”

Assessing the global hotspots, the report said that conditions in the Gaza Strip have improved since an October 2025 ceasefire but remain fragile. About 1.6 million people — roughly 77 per cent of the population analyzed — were acutely food insecure earlier this year and in need of urgent assistance, including more than half a million in emergency levels and a smaller number facing catastrophic conditions.

Yemen remains “one of the world’s worst food security crises,” hosting the largest population facing emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity, it said.

And the threat of famine between now and November looms over people in Nigeria’s Borno state and Somalia’s Burhakaba district as well as in South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states, and in Sudan’s North Darfur, South Darfur and South Kordofan regions.

The FAO and the WFP called for swift, coordinated international action to scale up aid, protect livelihoods and prevent further deterioration, warning that without swift intervention, millions more could face catastrophic hunger in the months ahead.

Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations

Giada Zampano, The Associated Press