The children were starving and freezing, urgently in need of help.
Tips
usage
The simplified form 饥 merges the two traditional characters 飢 (hungry) and 饑 (famine/crop failure). Both meanings are now carried by 饥 in simplified Chinese.
饣 is the left-side simplified form of 食 (food). It anchors 饥 to the eating-and-cooking family: 饭 (cooked rice), 饿 (hungry), 馆 (hall / restaurant), 饺 (dumpling). The shape compresses 食 into a clean three-stroke vertical.
几 (jī) supplies the sound, unchanged. This is the simplified-PRC choice: traditional 飢 uses 几, while traditional 饑 (famine) uses 幾. Mainland reform merged both into 饥. Same phonetic gives 机, 肌, 矶.
