The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine during World War II in the Bengal Province and Orissa Province of British India. An estimated 800,000–3.8 million people died, in the Bengal region, from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions, poor British wartime policies, and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. Eventually, families disintegrated; men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to join the British Indian Army, and women and children became homeless migrants, often travelling to Calcutta or other large cities in search of organised relief.