Starvation as a Weapon of War

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the use of starvation as a weapon of war globally, and what steps they are taking to ensure that international humanitarian law is upheld in this regard.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to raise an important issue that affects millions of people around the world. Today is World Food Day, and this year’s theme calls for global collaboration to create a peaceful, sustainable, prosperous and food-secure future. Yet we live with the devastating reality where last year, over 295 million people faced acute hunger. In armed conflicts, both intranational and international, hunger is increasingly used as a deliberate strategy of warfare and control.

Conflict-related food insecurity affects over 140 million people. Humanitarian aid is restricted, aid workers and journalists are killed, cities are blockaded and starved, agricultural land is destroyed and vital food infrastructure, like bakeries, is bombed. Starvation and malnutrition do not only kill people; they destroy the very fabric of societies, making it so much harder to achieve peace, and lock countries and communities in a never-ending cycle of conflict and insecurity.

The use of starvation as a weapon of war in international conflicts is recognised as a war crime in the Rome statute, including starvation through wilfully impeding relief supplies. An amendment in 2019, which the UK has not yet recognised—it would be very good to know where the Government currently stand on this—extends this recognition to non-international conflicts. The UN Security Council has also unanimously adopted Resolutions 2417 and 2573, which condemn the starving of civilians and the deprivation of objects indispensable to survival as methods of warfare.

Yet this abhorrent tactic is increasing in prevalence throughout the world. It is often undertaken with impunity, and we are seeing it across nations such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia and Syria. Children are most at risk of death, whether from starvation itself or from preventable diseases that turn deadly because of the way malnutrition weakens our bodies. To quote a doctor,

“Basically, the body just”


shuts

“down … it pulls energy from other organs just to keep the brain going”.

If a child does not die from the conflict or from an infection, eventually, the heart gives out.

“It is a very cruel, slow death”.


The generals’ war against the people of Sudan is a blight on humanity. These generals use their forces to enact a brutal campaign of terror, using mass executions, sexual violence and starvation as inhumane tools of war, with devastating consequences. Over half the country—more than 24 million people—is now in acute food insecurity. Famine was confirmed in 2024 in North Darfur’s Zamzam region and is now present in 10 regions of the country. Some 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year.

There are grave concerns about the RSF siege of El Fasher, where 260,000 civilians have been trapped for more than 500 days. There have been indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and a blockade on aid is being used as an attempt to starve the city into submission. Diseases like cholera are increasingly prevalent as critical infrastructure is targeted and vital supplies diminish. Both the SAF and the RSF use starvation as a deliberate strategy to break the civilian population through hunger, fear and exhaustion. A doctor based in El Fasher said:

“The children of El Fasher are dying on a daily basis due a lack of food, lack of medicine. Unfortunately, the international community is just not watching”.


We cannot afford to let this crisis unfold: there needs to be a greater international effort to stop this brutal war. The UK is the UN penholder for Sudan. Is the Minister confident that we are using all our influence on the international stage and within the UN to build a coalition of the willing against those generals, and to protect the people of Sudan?

I very much welcome the doubling of UK aid to Sudan, but within Sudan there are many local actors and organisations that could be used to save lives and distribute humanitarian aid. They have an undaunted spirit, and a hope that a Sudan free from the generals and their catastrophic war is achievable. The recent report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact has highlighted that the UK struggles to provide direct funding for these local organisations. Can the Minister assure me that the department can address this going forward?

Sudan is a hidden war in which the generals’ forces continue to act with impunity, but that has not been the case in Gaza. We have seen the conflict constantly play out on our TV screens and news feeds. We have followed the flotillas, and millions of us have marched throughout the country to campaign for an end to this war.

Aid has not been allowed into Gaza—except the pittance the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was permitted to distribute—with often disastrous consequences. More than 12,000 children are acutely malnourished, and more than 150 have died as a result of starvation. A mother in Gaza city wept: “We fast for days, just to leave something for the children. Sometimes, there is nothing—only water. At night they cry, saying, ‘Mama, we’re hungry’. I hold them and say, ‘You’ll eat in heaven’, and then I cry when they fall asleep.”

Given the peace deal, we must now ensure that this truce turns into lasting peace and that humanitarian aid can flow unrestricted into the area. Deliberate starvation of civilians not only kills people; it undermines the very fabric of society, normalises these crimes for future conflicts and weakens the international legal order.

I close with a call for action. We need a united and urgent response to ensure the upholding of international legal norms, and we need accountability for those who have deliberately starved populations as a method of war and control. I hope that by next year’s World Food Day, we will have seen an end to this abhorrent use of hunger—I am not holding my breath—but for this to begin to happen, we need action now.