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Faltering Middle East truces and Sudan's unchecked atrocities define a deeply fractured global crisis landscape.

In Sudan, 7.4 million IDPs — internally displaced people forced from their homes, a group larger than Denmark's population — are fleeing a four-year civil war where famine is confirmed in multiple states. Meanwhile, Middle East truces are fracturing. A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah collapsed after Hezbollah rejected disarmament terms, sparking renewed Israeli airstrikes on Beirut. In the Strait of Hormuz, the US military recently shot down Iranian drones, threatening a pending diplomatic deal to pause the wider Iran-US conflict. Global food prices remain stubbornly high, driven by expensive cooking oils.

These overlapping crises create cascading economic effects. If the Iran-US diplomatic deal fails and the Strait of Hormuz closes, Gulf states will face immediate food import shortages, pushing already high global cooking oil prices even higher. This inflation directly worsens hunger in places like Yemen and South Sudan, where millions rely on imported staples. Furthermore, Sudan’s unchecked atrocities and mass displacement are destabilizing the entire Horn of Africa, draining humanitarian budgets that are already stretched thin by the 7.3 million displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East remain the most critical variable for global food stability.

Watch items

• Iran — Hormuz closure impact on Gulf state food imports
• Venezuela — Post-earthquake infrastructure collapse hindering humanitarian aid delivery
• Lebanon — Hezbollah ceasefire rejection risking expanded Israeli ground operations