LONDON, Jan 31 (Agencies): A surge in the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip since the truce between Israel and Hamas took effect on Jan. 19 is likely to ease the acute food emergency afflicting people in the war-ravaged territory, especially its children. But even after relief reaches them, the hunger they have endured could cast a shadow over their health for years to come.
More than 60,000 children in Gaza will need treatment for acute malnutrition in 2025, according to United Nations estimates from Jan. 22. Some have already died - estimates of how many vary widely. Survivors who are able to return to adequate levels of nutrition nonetheless face an insidious threat: the multiple long-term health problems linked to childhood malnutrition.
This troubling prospect is of urgent global concern. As Reuters has reported in a series of articles, famine and other acute food crises have ravaged populations across the developing world over the past year, from Haiti to Afghanistan to Sudan and many other African nations, as well as Gaza.
About 131 million children, nearly 40 million of them under age 5, live in areas experiencing acute food crises around the world, according to estimates provided exclusively to Reuters by the United Nations' World Food Programme. Nearly 4.7 million pregnant women live in these areas, the United Nations Population Fund said. The U.N. estimates are based on the most recent data from countries where assessments were possible.
The lasting damage of childhood hunger is wide-ranging and can be profound, according to scientists, nutrition experts and officials at humanitarian organizations. Children who experience severe malnutrition may never reach their full cognitive or physical potential, according to multiple studies that have tracked survivors of past food shortages. Other studies have shown that undernutrition in childhood, and even in the womb, can be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and other non-communicable illnesses later in life.
The five countries with the largest estimated numbers of children experiencing acute food insecurity.
"People focus, quite rightly, on the short-term aspects of malnutrition," said Marko Kerac, professor of nutrition for global health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "What's missed … is that the damage done will not suddenly stop when the emergency stops."
Studies have shown that some effects of severe hunger can be mitigated if a child later gains access to good nutrition. But that is a big if. In many countries where food crises occur, poverty, war and civil strife persist long after the crisis has passed, limiting children's access to adequate food and healthcare.
That makes it hard to get exact data on how many are affected in both the short and long-term, said Hannah Stephenson, head of nutrition with Save the Children. But "the more severely malnourished a child is, the harder it will be to recover," she said. The duration of malnourishment is also a crucial variable, she said.
She and other experts stressed that while every malnourished child is a tragedy, famines and other food crises can do lasting harm to society as whole by leaving an entire generation with physical and cognitive deficits. "It costs the person, the family, the country," said Professor Mubarek Abera, a child and maternal nutrition and mental health researcher at Jimma University in Ethiopia who was born during that country's famine in the early 1980s.
Where pregnant women are experiencing acute food crises, which can lead to lifelong damage to their children's health.
In a food crisis, children are more vulnerable than adults to malnourishment and death from starvation or infectious diseases, which are more lethal to those weakened by hunger. Children are also more vulnerable than adults to long-term health problems from a period of extreme malnourishment, scientists said, because their bodies and brains are still developing.
There are four different kinds of undernutrition, as defined by the World Health Organization. All can be present during a famine or other severe food crisis, leave lasting marks, and can also co-exist in one child:
Wasting. This occurs when a child's weight is low for their height and often indicates a recent episode of intense hunger and weight loss. It is a medical emergency, but 90 per cent of children can recover in the short-term if they get treatment, which involves therapeutic foods, antibiotics and deworming. In 2023, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF estimated that 73 per cent of children in the most urgent need received treatment.
Gaza 'ceasefire at risk' if UNRWA
forced to stop operations
Israel's forcible shutdown of the UN's humanitarian work in the Palestinian territory would put the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Hamas at risk, the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) at the head of the ban has warned.
UNRWA has for more than seven decades provided essential aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has described the organisation as "a lifeline" for nearly six million Palestinian refugees under its charge in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Israel had accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas, an allegation that the agency strongly denied. It also accused UNRWA staff members of being part of the October 7 attack. Israel has not provided evidence for its claims and accusations.
Subsequently, it passed legislation severing ties with the agency, which came into force on Thursday, a move likely to hamper its vital services after 15 months of war in Gaza. The agency is banned from operating on Israeli soil and contact between it and Israeli officials is also forbidden.
"If UNRWA is not allowed to continue to bring and distribute supplies, then the fate of this very fragile ceasefire is going to be at risk and is going to be in jeopardy," Juliette Touma, director of communications of UNRWA, told a Geneva press briefing on Friday.
UNRWA issued the warning as the United Kingdom, France and Germany reiterated their "grave concern" over Israel's ban.
Two killed in Israeli attack on
Lebanon's Bekaa Valley
At least two people have been killed after Israel launched a wave of attacks on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in its latest breach of a fragile ceasefire agreement with the Hezbollah group.
The Israeli army said on Friday it struck "multiple" Hezbollah targets in the area near the border with Syria in the east, as tensions escalated following its extension of a recent deadline for removing its troops from the country.
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