Monitoring access to food, malnutrition rates, and death rates are crucial indicators for declaring a famine. A famine is declared when at least one-fifth of the population struggles to access food, with high malnutrition rates, and increasing death rates. In situations of severe food deprivation and malnutrition, mortality inevitably follows. Pushing back on famine indicators with strategic communications rather than addressing the evidence reflects a lack of understanding of how famines work.