Mahatma Gandhi once said, "There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." Gandhi's words, spoken nearly a century ago, hold true even today. Hunger has plagued humanity from the time of the early caveman in search of food, to the present, where children die of malnutrition in Third World nations. Hunger remains due to such causes as bad harvests, wars, injustice, environment and the mixing up of priorities. The world as a whole must think of solutions to Third World hunger as it not only affects people living in the poorer nations but their more affluent counterparts as well.
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A major cause of hunger in African nations is famine. Famine occurs frequently in Africa and was responsible for 2 million lives alone in 1985. Every year since then, it has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Famines usually follow droughts which experts say can be prevented. However, because of military campaigns, civil wars and political unrest, the impact of weather related factors such as drought are heightened. Following the famine in 1985, Ethiopia experienced civil war for 11 years. Farmers had to leave their farms, crops were destroyed and many peasants starved.
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Sudan in 1991 was a land in turmoil as Sudanese troops fought a rebel army and the country ran out of food. Supplies on both sides were depleted and they began taking from food relief shipments meant for the people. As a result many perished. Sudan was not alone. War in other African countries such as Mozambique, Angola and Uganda caused hunger throughout the 1980s. .
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Due to the lack of food, money and supplies, Third World nations find themselves looking for assistance from the richer countries. This occurred frequently during the 1970s and after the worldwide recession in 1980, interest rates soared. As a result, nations owing vast amounts of money, found themselves deeper in debt.