![]() ![]() ![]() O’Brien had no illusions about the causes of the four famines, actual or imminent, that he detailed in north-eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations.’ ‘Critical’, I’d argue, not because it is the worst crisis of our lifetime, but because a long decline – seven decades –in mass death from starvation has come to an end in fact it has been reversed. In March, the then head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the East-African born former Tory MP Stephen O’Brien, told the Security Council that ‘we stand at a critical point in history. But this year, mass starvation is back and we face the possibility of four or five simultaneous famines in the world. Last year I wrote in the New York Times that they might be abolished for good. ![]() Over the last half century, famines have become rarer and less lethal. ![]() Mass starvation on account of the weather has all but disappeared: today’s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet too often, journalists use the phrase ‘man-made famine’ as if it were a surprise. In its primary use, the verb ‘to starve’ is transitive: something people do to one another, like torture or murder. This is the first half of a two part extended version of an essay published in the London Review of Books (39:12, 15 June 2017, pp. ![]()
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