You can save war victims from starvation
April is the anniversary of the Allies’ mission to stop famine in the Netherlands at the end of World War II. Millions of Dutch civilians were saved from starvation when U.S. and British planes dropped food into the German occupied Netherlands.
Operations Manna (Royal Air Force) and Chowhound (U.S. Air Force) were the code names for the food drops which began April 29,
1945. Truck convoys led by Canadian forces followed with more life-saving food.
This noble humanitarian mission continued through V-E Day (May 8, 1945) when the war ended in Europe.
But imagine if the food supplies were not available, and the Allies’ mission was not able to take place? What if there was a lack of funding for this food aid? What if someone in Congress had failed to take action, thus preventing food supplies from being shipped overseas for the Netherlands’ relief mission?
Fortunately, the Allies were able to stockpile food in the liberated section of the Netherlands. Food also had to be stockpiled in Britain since that is where the Royal Air Force and U.S. planes would start the airlift.
General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, ordered this food buildup in the Netherlands months in advance. This food aid buildup faced lots of challenges amid a German offensive in the winter of 1944-45. Food had to be sent to Belgium because of the fighting. But when the opportunity came to bring food into the German occupied Netherlands, the Allies were able to take action.
Those who provided the food were behind-the-scenes heroes. Today, you can be a hero too by becoming an advocate for increasing global food aid.
Right now lots of humanitarian missions cannot take place because there is not enough funding. In some countries the U.N. World Food Program has been forced to reduce rations because of funding shortages.
The WFP says: “This has resulted in colossal reductions in the number of people we serve. With 333 million people around the world facing acute hunger, we were forced to cut rations outright for millions of people in countries such as Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and Yemen, pushing families deeper into hunger.”
I recently attended a press conference organized by CARE about the crisis in war-torn Sudan. There are famine conditions in Sudan, but hardly any funding for the relief effort. There are refugees from Sudan fleeing into neighboring countries, South Sudan and Chad, but there are little food supplies waiting for these starving victims.
Malawi is another country facing severe hunger because of drought. The WFP is appealing for help to feed two million people there.
“The impact is huge, and so are the needs,” said Paul Turnbull, WFP country director and representative in Malawi. “We can avert a hunger catastrophe for the hardest hit families, but time is not on our side. I’m calling on the international community to step up now and help us save lives.”
That is where you can make a difference, by writing to your representatives in Congress and telling them to increase food aid for the world’s hungry. You can be part of the behind-the-scenes heroics that can lead to life-saving food for those in need.
The starving child in Sudan, Gaza, Yemen, the D.R. Congo and Haiti need a voice. They need someone to come to their rescue, but that cannot happen if people turn away from the cries for help.
We each can speak up for increasing global food aid and calling for peace in war zones like Sudan and Gaza. By using your voice you are making feeding the hungry a priority.
With so much hunger around the globe, we should not be hearing stories about how shortages of funding are leading to ration cuts. We need to meet the challenge of extreme hunger in our time, and get food to those in desperate need.