• livus@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    “Famine” is a technical term with quite a high threshold:

    • At least 20 per cent of the population in that particular area are facing extreme levels of hunger;

    • 30 per cent of the children in the same place are wasted, or too thin for their height; and

    • The death – or mortality – rate has doubled, from the average, surpassing two deaths per 10,000 daily for adults and four deaths per 10,000 daily for children.

    Source: UN

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      You should check out the actual part of the UN responsible for declaring famines, the IPC. They use phases 1 through 5 to describe the severity of the situation. Northern Gaza is Stage 5 and Southern Gaza is Stage 4.

      The definition of their phases -

      Differentiation between different levels of severity of acute food insecurity, classifying units of analysis in five distinct phases: (1) Minimal/None, (2) Stressed, (3) Crisis, (4) Emergency, (5) Catastrophe/Famine.

      We are at Catastrophe. Famine is not a warning designation, it is when a lot of people start dying. The warnings have been coming for months. You do not wait until the IPC says, yup it’s a famine, to treat it seriously.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        This. Humanitarian NGOs have been warning about this for months now. The crisis is happening right now.