The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached a record 83.4 million at the end of 2024, according to the new Global Report on Internal Displacement released on Tuesday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The total is more than double the number just six years ago, and equivalent to the population of Germany.
An even deeper humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan as hundreds of thousands of Afghans are forced to return from neighboring countries and the global humanitarian funding crisis takes a heavy toll on the country. Numerous United Nations agencies have announced drastic cost-cutting measures in response to massive shortfalls in funding, following brutal cuts by the new US administration in Washington.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) Danish Refugee Council (DRC) predicts that global forced displacement will surge in the next two years, with 4.2 million people newly displaced in 2025 alone, and a further 2.5 million people expected to flee their communities in search of safety and protection in 2026. The grim forecast comes at a time when global displacement is already at an all-time high, with some 123 million people currently forcibly displaced around the world.
As global humanitarian funding plummets due to extreme funding cuts by the United States, the United Nations on Thursday released US$110 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to scale up life-saving assistance in ten of the world's most underfunded and neglected crises in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In total, more than 307 million people around the world are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Diplomats for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said Wednesday that neighboring Pakistan is implementing a plan for the "imminent" and rapid mass deportation of nearly three million Afghan refugees from its territory. More than 825,000 undocumented Afghans have already been forcibly repatriated from Pakistan since September 2023, as a result of a government crackdown on foreigners living in the country without legal permission or whose visas have expired.
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Thursday that he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan accused of crimes against humanity, citing widespread persecution of the country's female population and its LGBTQI+ population. The request comes as Afghanistan continues to suffer from one of the world's largest human rights and humanitarian crises.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) released its annual Emergency Watchlist on Wednesday, spotlighting the 20 countries most likely to face escalating humanitarian needs in the coming year. According to the dire ranking, the top five crises are Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Myanmar, Syria and South Sudan, as war and climate change fuel new and ongoing humanitarian emergencies around the world.
Women and girls are bearing the brunt of an ongoing "dangerous erosion" of human rights in Afghanistan, the United Nations reported Tuesday, attributing the crisis to a deliberate failure by the country's radical Taliban. Since regaining control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Taliban leaders have systematically deprived women and girls of their basic rights, including the right to education, work, and freedoms of movement and expression, as well as the right to live free from violence.
The year is not yet over, but 2024 has already become the deadliest on record for humanitarian workers, with the war in Gaza driving up the numbers, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday, citing data from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD). The grim milestone was reached with the recorded deaths of 281 aid workers globally, surpassing the previous record of 2023.
A new United Nations report warns that people forced to flee war, violence and persecution are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines of the global climate crisis, exposed to a deadly combination of threats but without the funding and support to adapt. The warning comes as three-quarters of the world's more than 123 million forcibly displaced people live in countries heavily exposed to climate change.
Three years after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, international aid organizations are warning that the country risks becoming a forgotten crisis without sustained international support and engagement. Millions of Afghans continue to struggle in one of the world's largest, most neglected and most complex humanitarian crises.
United Nations officials have once again outlined the dire situation in Afghanistan, with more than 50 percent of the population - some 23.7 million people - in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024, the third-highest number of people in need in the world. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's de facto rulers, the Taliban, are touting a UN invitation to an international conference in Qatar later this month, which they see as a recognition of their government's growing global importance.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that forced displacement around the world has reached historic highs, driven by conflict, persecution, human rights abuses, the climate crisis and other events disturbing public order. In a report released on Thursday, UNHCR said the number of forcibly displaced people continued to rise this year and now stands at 120 million.
The United Nations has warned that the delivery of life-saving aid to millions of people in Afghanistan could be "severely impeded" as donors have only provided 7 percent of the humanitarian funding appeal for 2024. More than half of Afghanistan's population, 23.7 million - including 12.4 million children - are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, but aid agencies will only be able to reach a fraction of them due to a severe lack of funds.
Children are being denied access to life-saving humanitarian aid in conflict zones around the world in blatant disregard for international law, a senior United Nations official told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. Speakers at the hearing focused in particular on the alarming situation for children in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Sudan, Haiti, Yemen, Myanmar, Mali, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has shown initial signs of improvement, with the United Nations reporting a significant reduction in the number of people in need of assistance this year. Afghanistan's economic collapse, triggered by the collapse of the government, the Taliban takeover and the subsequent withdrawal of foreign aid, has left the landlocked country in crisis.
International donor funding to alleviate hunger in the world's neediest countries plummeted in 2023, despite exacerbating global food insecurity reaching record highs, aid agencies warn. Humanitarian appeals for the 17 countries bearing the brunt of food insecurity suffered a staggering funding gap of 65 percent last year, up 23 percent from 2022, according to an analysis released this week by the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger.
The United Nations and partner agencies renewed a call Tuesday for countries to immediately suspend mass deportations of Afghan nationals, citing the onset of a harsh winter and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The call comes amid reports that Iran and Pakistan have collectively forced out more than 500,000 Afghans over the past two months, with the number of deportees growing by the day.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warn that acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 18 hunger hotspots – comprising a total of 22 countries or territories including two regions – during the period from November 2023 to April 2024.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has announced Wednesday that the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights violations globally is estimated at more than 114 million at the end of September. According to a new UNHCR report, the main drivers of forced displacement in the first half of 2023 were: war in Ukraine and conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar; a combination of drought, floods and insecurity in Somalia; and a prolonged humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
Officials in Afghanistan say the death toll from a powerful earthquake that shook western parts of the country on Saturday has risen to more than 2,000. The Taliban-led Ministry of Natural Disasters confirmed the death toll in a statement Sunday, saying more than 1,300 houses were completely destroyed in the quake.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) are appealing to Pakistan to continue its protection of all vulnerable Afghans who have sought safety in the country and could be at imminent risk if forced to return. Today’s appeal comes after Pakistan announced plans this week to forcefully repatriate Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan. The neighboring country is going through a severe humanitarian crisis with several human rights challenges, particularly for women and girls.
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has released US$125 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to boost underfunded humanitarian operations in fourteen countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East. Afghanistan and Yemen top the recipient list with $20 million each.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it is being forced to drop another 2 million hungry people from food assistance in Afghanistan in September, bringing to 10 million the number of people cut off from its support this year in the country. Due to a massive funding shortfall, WFP will only be able to provide emergency assistance to 3 million of the most vulnerable people per month, the UN agency said in a statement Tuesday.
Millions of people in Afghanistan are likely to have no food, healthcare or shelter this winter because of critical funding gaps. Donor have contributed so far less than 25 percent of humanitarian funding needed as 28.3 million people - two-thirds of the Afghanistan’s population - require humanitarian assistance this year. Lack of donor funding is the No. 1 problem hindering humanitarian response efforts.
As protracted and new armed conflicts have continued to rage in 2022, the number of children severely affected by hostilities has remained shockingly high at almost 19,000 children in 25 countries and the Lake Chad Basin region, according to a new UN report published Tuesday. While there were 27,180 grave violations verified overall, the conflicts with the highest numbers of children affected last year were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Yemen.
An international non-governmental organization (NGO) warned Monday that a large-scale plague of locusts is ravaging northern Afghanistan and could destroy 1.2 million metric tons of wheat, almost one-quarter of the country's annual harvest. The locust outbreak comes as funding shortfalls have cut off food aid for 8 million people in Afghanistan in the past two months.
Acute food insecurity is set to increase in magnitude and severity in 18 hunger hotspots comprising a total of 22 countries, a new UN early warning report has found. The analysis issued Monday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent starvation and death in countries where acute hunger is at a high risk of worsening from June to November 2023.
The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution Thursday condemning the decision of the Taliban to ban Afghan women from working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, saying that it undermines human rights and humanitarian principles. The resolution also demands that Afghanistan's de facto leaders swiftly reverse their restrictions on women's access to education and work.
Taliban officials in Afghanistan have informed the United Nations (UN) they are banning women from working for the organization in Afghanistan, the world organization said Tuesday about the group’s latest edict restricting the rights and movements of women in that country. The UN said Wednesday that it "condemns in the strongest terms" the Taliban's decision, calling the ban unlawful and unacceptable.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it has been forced to drastically reduce critical lifesaving assistance in Afghanistan to millions of vulnerable people due to lack of funds. In March, at least four million Afghanis will receive just half of what they need to get by.
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has briefed member states today on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and on his recent visit to the country as part of an Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) mission, stressing that women are an essential, central component of the humanitarian operation in Afghanistan
Leading international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have announced that they will suspend their humanitarian work in Afghanistan, at least temporarily. The move comes after the Taliban de facto authorities reportedly issued an order Saturday barring all female employees of national and international organizations from going to work with immediate effect.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warns that acute hunger in Afghanistan is no longer seasonal but a grueling daily reality for millions of people. WFP said today that two-thirds of the country’s population - or 28.3 million - will require humanitarian assistance next year, up from 24.4 million men, women and children in 2022. According to the UN agency, malnutrition in Afghanistan has reached the highest levels since records have been kept.
The humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) has released its annual Emergency Watchlist Wednesday, highlighting the 20 countries most at risk of deteriorating humanitarian crises in 2023. This year, Somalia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan top the Watchlist, as East Africa faces the worst drought in decades and economic turmoil continues to compound needs in Afghanistan.
Three and a half years after the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan remains in the grip of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Millions of people in Afghanistan are experiencing misery and hunger in the midst of decades of conflict. The cumulative effects of violent conflict, internal displacement, drought and other natural disasters have dramatically increased humanitarian needs throughout Afghanistan. The country is vulnerable to natural disasters, including floods and earthquakes.
