War in Ukraine is pushing millions of the world’s poorest into starvation

MOGADISHU, Somalia—Young victims of an escalating global food crisis are buried in unmarked graves. In overcrowded malnutrition wards, families wait for a sick child to leave before bringing in the next. Mothers are returning home empty-handed after dwindling food markets, where prices of some staples have doubled in recent months.

The worst food emergency in half a century is affecting Somalia and some of the world’s other poorest countries, where the effects of drawn-out conflict and increasingly extreme weather are exacerbated by economic disruption caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.