Global Journal of Human Social Science, F: Political Science, Volume 22 Issue 5

Source: Ali & Azaroual & Bourhriba, 2022: 3 Graph 9: Main Ukrainian and Russian exports and their shares of global trade III. F ood as a W eapon of W ar Already irrespectively of the potential effects of Russia’s Ukraine war, food and starvation have been used as a weapon of war since Antiquity. The most infamous examples in Africa include the Herero and Namaqua genocide i n German South-West Africa ( now Namibia ) from 1904 to 1908. It was the first genocide of the 20th century. Also, the subsequent famines in South Sudan in 1 993, 1998 and 2017, caused by civil war and political unrest, have been engraved in the memory of mankind. Food has become such an inhuman weapon that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 included it in article 8 (paragraph 25) as a war crime (Rivoal, 2015). Apart from military considerations, food can also be used in conflicts for geopolitical or domestic political purposes such as displacing populations within the same country or intentionally starving parts of its own population. This was for example the case in Ethiopia in 1984 when massive amounts of food aid had been accepted and distributed only in specific parts of the country so that the populations had to move toward these regions (Rivoal, 2015). Similar politics had been used in Southern Sudan in 1993, 1998 a nd 2017 ( Wikipedia) as well as in the famine in Somalia in 1992 connected with the Somali Civil War. An estimated 220,000 - 300,000 people died during this famine ( 1992 famine in Somalia, Wikipedia). Subsequently, during the East African drought in 2011 which caused a severe food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia a nd Kenya, the livelihood of 9.5 million people was threatened. A major reason was that many refugees from southern Somalia had fled to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, where crowded, unsanitary conditions together with severe malnutrition led to a large number of deaths ( 2011 East Africa drought, Wikipedia). Source: Famine Early Warning Systems Network – USAID, 23 July 2011 © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue V Version I 7 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 F Will Putin’s Ukraine War Provoke Famine and Upheaval in Africa ? Graph 10: Projection of the 2011 East Africa drought for October-December