Source: United Nations (video statements)
Remarks by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on Food under fire: the Security Council’s role in mitigating global and local food crises.
Critical food systems — and the lives and livelihoods they sustain — are under attack,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council, warning that conflict remains the primary driver of global hunger.
Speaking at a Council meeting on conflict and food security, Guterres said, “It is no coincidence that 2025 saw not only the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II — but also among the highest levels of global acute hunger on record, with at least 266 million people facing acute food insecurity.”
He noted that 2025 “also marked the first time this century that two famines were confirmed simultaneously, in Sudan and Gaza,” calling it “a shameful milestone,” and cited the UN’s latest Hunger Hotspots report, which “shows that conflict and violence are the primary drivers in 12 out of 13 hunger hotspots of greatest concern.”
The Secretary-General called on the Council to consider three measures to strengthen Resolution 2417, which recognizes the need to “break the vicious cycle between armed conflict and food insecurity.”
“First — Resolution 2417 must be implemented consistently and in full,” he said, adding that for parties to conflict this means “not depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival — including food, crops, livestock, and drinking water supplies.”
“Second — food systems must be protected in their entirety,” Guterres continued, urging the Council to “renew its support for protections for infrastructure essential to food security.”
“And thirdly, humanitarian personnel must be protected,” he said, stressing that all parties to a conflict must allow “the practical arrangements necessary for the delivery of aid.”