Following two years of war, most of Gaza’s roughly two million residents are living in makeshift shelters. Humanitarians are working to deliver assistance to communities in flood-prone areas, including by scaling up distribution of winter clothes for children from 5,000 kits a day to 8,000. UN partners leading winter preparedness efforts reported that some 200 families have left shoreline communities for a new site identified by...
On 10 November, the Federal Government of Somalia formally declared a drought emergency and appealed for urgent international assistance as conditions continued to deteriorate across northern, central and southern regions, according to the UN relief coordination office, OCHA. Puntland is among the worst affected areas, where authorities estimate that nearly...
Reports of mass atrocities in and around the newly-captured city of El Fasher in Darfur mark a new low in Sudan’s brutal civil war and the Security Council met in emergency session on Thursday morning in New York to address the rapidly deteriorating situation. Civilians are facing starvation and mass...
The UN Security Council met Sunday morning in New York following the Israeli cabinet’s decision to again expand its military operation inside the Gaza Strip and take full control of the key population centre of Gaza City. UN chief António Guterres described it earlier as a “dangerous escalation” for the...
The Council cleared its original schedule to address the rapidly evolving crisis, also hearing from the head of the UN-backed international nuclear watchdog, who warned of the grave risks to regional stability and nuclear safety. Overnight from Thursday into Friday, Israeli military strikes targeted nuclear facilities across Iran, including the...
“Over the past six months, WFP scaled up assistance and we are now reaching nearly one million Sudanese in Khartoum with food and nutrition support,” said Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director in Sudan. “This momentum must continue; several areas in the south are at risk of famine.” In an update from...
Over the past five years, the refugee population in Kenya has surged by more than 70 per cent – from approximately 500,000 to 843,000 – driven largely by conflict and drought in neighbouring Sudan and Somalia. Of these, around 720,000 people are sheltering in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps, as...
The UN health agency registered almost 810,000 cases and 5,900 deaths from the preventable disease in 2024; that’s about 50 per cent higher than the previous year, according to Dr Philippe Barboza, who leads WHO’s cholera team. He said the latest reported cases are almost certainly underestimates and that the...
The situation represents one of the world’s worst food crises, according to the UN-partnered Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform. “The humanitarian situation in the DRC is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Families who were already struggling to feed themselves are now facing an even harsher reality,” said Eric Perdison,...
The UN’s top aid official, Tom Fletcher, said that more than 300 million people urgently need assistance. But funding has been falling annually, and this year’s levels are projected to drop to a record low. “Brutal funding cuts don’t mean that humanitarian needs disappear; today’s emergency fund allocation channels resources...
Dead bodies lie in the streets, hospitals are overwhelmed and there has been an uptick in reports of sexual violence, rape and looting. “Roads are blocked, ports are closed and those crossing Lake Kivu risk their lives in makeshift boats,” said Shelley Thakral, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme...
Intensifying hostilities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo involving the non-state armed group M23 have caused further mass displacement in the mineral-rich region, with fears that the regional capital Goma could come under attack, UN agencies warned on Friday....
