Key messages:

• In East Africa, conflict and weather shocks continue to drive severe and complex humanitarian crises. Food assistance needs remain most critical in Sudan, where extreme hunger and high levels of malnutrition and mortality are likely ongoing in areas of North Darfur and Khartoum. A rapidly escalating cholera outbreak, which is heavily concentrated in Khartoum, is expected to further accelerate levels of mortality. Needs are also pronounced in South Sudan, with highest concern for parts of Upper Nile and northern Jonglei region that would face extreme hunger, malnutrition, and mortality if ongoing conflict and anticipated flooding continue to cause disruptions to critical supply corridors and isolate populations for multiple months. Heightened concern also persists for populations in northern Ethiopia and north-central Somalia, where insecurity and drought are limiting household access to food, and for internally displaced and refugee populations in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi.

• In the Middle East and Afghanistan, food assistance needs remain high across the region. The scale and severity of need is most extreme in Gaza, where expanded military operations and the operational challenges of the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution system are still resulting in mass starvation, including high levels of acute malnutrition and hunger-related deaths. In Yemen and Lebanon, the long-term impacts of conflict, coupled with airstrikes on Yemen’s port infrastructure, continue to undermine the economy and access to food. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the forced return of over 680,500 Afghans from Iran and Pakistan since January is saturating an already weak labor market, while an erratic spring rainfall season has compromised wheat production in several rural areas.

• In West Africa, conflict and insecurity, coupled with localized weather shocks, are expected to drive increased food assistance needs during the Sahel’s lean season from June to September. Violent extremist organizations continue to expand territorial control, disrupt agricultural activities during critical planting periods, and impose taxation on farmers, particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria’s North East region. In Nigeria, severe flooding early in the rainy season has resulted in over 200 fatalities and damaged key infrastructure, including the near-total destruction of a major trading hub between surplus-producing areas of the north and deficit-producing areas of the south.

• In Southern Africa, a favorable 2025 harvest is currently improving access to food in many areas. Most poor rural households will rely on own-produced food through September, but needs will rise in late 2025 as the lean season begins. However, food assistance needs remain elevated in the eastern Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) and Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, where conflict has significantly disrupted engagement in agriculture and economic activity, as well as in southern Malawi and eastern Madagascar, where there are weather-related shortfalls in crop production.

• In Latin America and the Caribbean, acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in Haiti, Central America’s Dry Corridor, and Venezuela between June and September. The scale and severity of need are highest in Haiti, where gang violence is driving mass displacement, heavily disrupting economic activity, and significantly impeding household access to food. In Venezuela, high inflation and reduced purchasing power are straining access to food, particularly among poor urban households. In Central America, interannual weather shocks have eroded agricultural productivity, leading to atypically low household food stocks among subsistence farmers as the lean season begins.