Pope Leo XIV. on Thursday, he urged leaders from around the world to end hunger. During a visit to the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome he declared that letting millions of people go hungry every day is a collective and ethical failure. TASR writes about it according to the Reuters agency.
- Pope Leo XIV. called for an end to global hunger.
- According to UN statistics, 673 million people go hungry every day.
- He called the use of hunger as a weapon of war unethical.
- The Pope described the famine as a historical and collective failure.
- He made the statement at the 80th annual forum of the FAO organization.
The head of the Catholic Church too condemned the use of hunger as a weapon of war, but she did not comment on any specific conflicts or countries.
Leo XIV. cited UN figures according to which approximately 673 million people suffer from food insecurity every day. He described the number as “a clear sign of prevailing insensitivity, a callous economy… and an unfair and unsustainable system of resource distribution”.
“At a time when science has increased life expectancy … it is a collective failure, an ethical failure, a historical transgression that millions of people are starving – and starving to death.” declared the Pope.
According to him, today’s conflicts are “witnesses to the re-use of food as a weapon of war”. “International humanitarian law without exception prohibits attacks on civilians and on goods essential to the survival of the population… This seems to be being forgotten as we painfully witness the continued use of this cruel strategy.” said the Pope.
“We cannot go on like this because hunger is not mankind’s destiny but its downfall,” added Leo XI. At FAO headquarters on Thursday, he spoke, mostly in Spanish, to about 125 delegations attending a week-long forum marking the organization’s 80th anniversary.
