FAMINE

Bible prophecy of the end times: 

The Words of Jesus regarding the last days.
Luke 21:11 "And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, 
and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven"


The Vietnamese Famine of 1945
A famine that occurred in northern Vietnam, during the Japanese occupation of the country from October 1944 to May 1945, and for approximately three years after. Between 400,000 and 2 million people are estimated to have starved to death during this time.

China's Three Years of Natural Disasters
The famine that refers to the period in the People's Republic of China between 1959 and 1961, in which natural disasters caused widespread famine. "Three Bitter Years" is used by Chinese officials to describe this period. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998)

Bangladesh famine of 1974: 
Over a million people died in the Bangladesh famine from July 1974 to January 1975.

The 1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia
This was a significant famine in the history of Ethiopia. Drought and political instability contributed to the severity of the famine, which is estimated to have killed over one million people.

Famine may have killed 2 million in North Korea
August 19, 1998 Web posted at: 12:57 p.m. EDT (1657 GMT)

BEIJING (CNN) -- Two million North Koreans -- nearly 10 percent of the population -- may have died during three years of famine in North Korea, U.S. congressional aides said Wednesday.

Video footage brought back from the secretive communist country by a congressional staff delegation showed sickly, emaciated children, some with stick-thin bodies.

One young child, too weak to sit up, had to be propped up in the corner in an orphanage. Older children filmed during the delegation's week-long visit appeared severely stunted by malnutrition.

To survive the persisting food shortages, North Koreans are eating weeds, grasses and corn stalks that are mashed into powder and sometimes mixed with flour to make noodles or cakes. 


Famines today:

Friday, February 17, 2006
'Millions more starving' by 2015
By Ania Lichtarowicz - BBC News, St Louis, Missouri

The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, say scientists. They were speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Ten pre-school children die every minute from malnutrition and this number has not changed since the early 1980s despite global promises. 



February 16 2006
Crops lost, cattle dead, now Somalis 
are dieing of thirst due to drought

People in southern Somalia are starting to die from thirst says aid agency Oxfam.

Oxfam says assessment teams found seven people who died of dehydration, and that tens of thousands are now at risk. Oxfam reports an almost unprecedented situation, where people beg for water along the sides of the road. All surface water has gone, boreholes are running dry, and people are walking up to 70km (45 miles) in search of water. 

Some people are dying and children are drinking their own urine because there is simply no water available for them to drink," Somali village elder Abdullahi Maalim Hussein told Oxfam.

Feb. 15 2006
Malawi, a nation in Southern Africa, is today facing a severe food crisis: It is estimated that 4.2 to 4.6 million of the population will face food shortages between now and the next harvest in March 2006. 4.9 million people in the country need food assistance immediately.

Feb. 14 2006
The Horn of Africa food crisis
There is another acute shortage of food affecting four Horn of Africa countries: Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated on January 6, 2006, that more than 11 million people in these countries will be affected by an impending widespread famine, largely attributed to a severe drought, and exacerbated by military conflicts in the region. 

November 22, 2005
Hunger kills 6 million children each year'
Nearly six million children die from hunger or malnutrition every year, the Food and Agriculture Organization says. Many deaths result from treatable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and measles, the agency says. They would survive if they had proper nourishment, the agency says in a new report on world hunger. The report, based on data compiled last year, estimated that 852 million people were undernourished during 2000-2002. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of malnourished people has risen - to 203.5 million from 170.4 million 10 years previously, according to the new report. 

1984-1985
Famine killed at least one million in Ethiopia as severe drought led to desperate food shortages.

1959-1961
The "Great Leap Famine" cost an estimated 20 million to 40 million lives in China as the policies of Mao Zedong resulted in massive social and economic upheaval. China was also hit by major famines in 1941-1942.