Amina Suleman left her village in Maradun, Zamfara state, in northwestern Nigeria, fleeing Islamist militants.

"They killed many of us, and looted our properties and animals. They burnt everything including our food," she told DW.

The attacks happened seven years ago, but the security situation still hasn't improved. Government forces are fighting jihadi militias and bandits to stamp out kidnappings and extortion.

Nigerian hunger crisis grows 

Suleman lives with her seven children in an abandoned building near Sokoto.

"Our children have to go out to beg for us to eat. We don't have any source of food apart from begging. When they get a little money, we use it to buy garri," she said, referring to the cassava-based snack. 

Before, they ate whatever they grew in their fields. Now it is just enough for one meal a day. "Yesterday, I slept on an empty stomach, because there was no food."

Her husband is unemployed, and there is no help.

Jamila Shehu, 37, from the same village as Suleman, said bandits stole her possessions. Her family has survived so far due to the begging of her six children.

"When they get something for us, we will eat and if they don't, we will just go like that with an empty stomach," she said.

An estimated 318 million people worldwide are suffering acute hunger, of which a large portion lives across the African continent, according to the World Food Programme's Global Outlook for 2026.

The United Nations body says currently Gaza and parts of Sudan are most affected, marking the first time this century that two acute hunger crises are happening in two separate nations simultaneously.

Media 'ignores' hunger

Many hunger crises remain out of sight because of underreporting, according to researcher Ladislaus Ludescher of the Frankfurt-based Goethe University.

He describes world hunger as the "biggest solvable problem in the world," but criticizes a dramatic neglect of the problem in media and political circles.

"More people die of hunger than tuberculosis (TB), HIV/Aids and malaria combined," he told DW.

"Every 13 seconds a child under five dies due to hunger related causes. It's about a bigger problem that can be solved when sufficient resources are made available." 

Ludescher makes this case after studying output of 39 German media outlets — including 8,000 news reports, around 500 episodes of political talk shows, and over 1,000 issues of print media with about 37,000 pages. 

His takeaway: Solving world hunger is a question of political will, but media largely ignore the topic.

More reports on sport than developing countries

According to Ludescher, while "85% of people" live in developing countries, "only 10% of the reports in the most important news programs covers these people, and in most print media this number falls to 5%." 

For instance, in the first half of 2022, the major German news program Tagesschau devoted more coverage to sport than all developing countries combined. Soft news elements with higher entertainment value, such as sports, offer welcome respite from hard news in programming.

They deliver millions of viewers an escape into an easier, accessible world, which is not only defined by crises.

Ludescher adds his research showed there was more than double the coverage about actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022 than the civil war in Tigray, northern Ethiopia.

"In that war, over 120,000 women were raped, and with around 600,000 civilian deaths, it counts as the bloodiest war of the 21st century. But most people in Europe probably have never heard a word about this war," Ludescher said.

State of disaster in Malawi

Malawi in southern Africa is regularly listed in crisis reports.

"Malawi is going through one of the toughest hunger crises in recent years because of long droughts, unpredictable rains, and economic pressures," Pamela Kuwali, country director of the NGO CARE, told DW.

"Millions of families simply do not have enough food. Between now and March, about four million people are struggling with serious hunger."

The Malawian government has declared a state of disaster multiple times in the last decade. But according to Kuwali, few people are talking about this, and not loudly enough.

"When the media does not cover a crisis, it becomes invisible. And when a crisis becomes invisible, it becomes harder to raise funds, harder to mobilize support, and harder to get the political attention that leads to real solutions," Kuwali said. "Without stories, without images, without headlines, the world simply does not feel the urgency."

The media could sharpen the world's knowledge about world hunger, cause decision-makers to notice and become part of the problem-solving process, said Ludescher.

"This human and journalistic duty, with few exceptions, is not being fulfilled."

Deciding the news agenda plays a significant role in shaping public debates and discourse, Ludescher told DW.

"Politics and media share a reciprocal relationship. Media report on what politicians do, and what problems they grapple with. Politicians also observe which topics play a large role in the media, and latch onto those."

World spends more on weapons than food relief 

Ludescher estimates that around $10 to $50 billion (€42,38 billion) per year additionally would be enough to tackle the crisis. However, this sum pales in comparison to global military spending.

In 2024, the world spent US$2.7 trillion on military equipment, according to SIPRI, the Swedish think tank, a 9.4% increase on 2023. The United States and Germany have already announced heightened military spending.

Wealthier nations are looking inwards, said Ludescher. "The West talks a lot about humanity and human rights. With a fund for hunger – say about €100 billion – we would build more credibility."

This article was adapted from German.

Abiodun Jamiu in Nigeria contributed to this article.