Silent Hunger
By: Mohammed Ahmed Al-Feelabi
(Environmental Specialist)
The war in Sudan exposed the fragility of cities. As soon as services collapsed, hunger emerged, queues of the starving appeared, and the absence of the state exacerbated supply chain disruptions. Markets crumbled, while the countryside remained the only refuge capable of producing and providing the bare minimum of food, or distributing hunger discreetly. Open homes and shared meals spoke volumes about the value of sharing hunger.
As the wars intensify and the effects of climate change worsen, rural people migrate to the city, only to be confronted with the reality that hunger is not merely a lack of food they see but cannot access. The failure to integrate into urban society creates another kind of hunger, and the shattering of dreams amplifies the pangs of hunger.
Why is hunger here more acute and more intense? This question haunts Ahmed, a young man from the countryside, newly arrived in the city, who never imagined he could be so hungry as to lose his ability to think. There are no tables set up in the streets as in his village, no forests to provide even a few fruits to quell the pangs of hunger. There is plenty of food behind glass doors, in the hands of passersby, and everywhere except within reach. The city is merciless, gives nothing away for free, and doesn’t value patience.
Herein lies the ecological dimension of hunger. The city relies on complex networks; if these collapse, everything collapses with them. The countryside, on the other hand, depends on nature. If nature dries up, the people suffer, but they don’t all fall at once. Hunger in the countryside is part of nature’s cycle, accompanying rural people on their migrations in search of water, pasture, and lost animals. It strikes people in their villages when the rains are delayed or when the harvest fails.
When young people migrate far away, they leave behind women, the elderly, and children to face silent hunger. This is because the countryside possesses mechanisms for absorbing hunger that are absent in the city, such as kinship networks, modest expectations, and contentment with the bare minimum. When hunger is shared by everyone, just as meager provisions are shared, certainty arrives, and the pangs of hunger subside.
However, hunger has become a cloud covering most of the globe. According to the latest global food security reports, the world is experiencing one of the worst hunger crises in modern history, with some 733 million people suffering from acute calorie deficiency and 2.8 billion unable to afford a healthy diet. Global hunger levels have not improved since 2016; in fact, they are becoming more entrenched, making the goal of zero hunger by 2030 completely off track. These figures reflect a stark inequality gap and reveal the fragility of food systems, particularly in poor countries.