Amid severe underfunding in 2025, the United Nations (UN) and its partners have issued a grim warning regarding the escalating humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. According to the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP), published Wednesday, over 16.2 million people in Myanmar, including 5 million children, will require life-saving assistance and protection next year.
This alarming figure is an increase from the previous year, when 15.8 million people were identified as needing help. Ongoing conflict, recurrent disasters, and economic collapse have driven the crisis to worsen, with an estimated 3.6 million people displaced since the military takeover in 2021.
Internal displacement is expected to rise from 3.6 million to 4 million next year. This surge threatens to push millions of households who are barely coping into extreme deprivation.
“Behind every number is a person trying to survive a crisis they did not choose,” said Gwyn Lewis, the Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim in Myanmar, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.
“The world’s attention is stretched, but the needs in Myanmar continue to rise, and the people deserve to be heard and seen.”
Aid agencies plan to focus their efforts on assisting the most vulnerable, aiming to reach 4.9 million people in 2026. However, due to global funding constraints, the HRNP has been scaled back drastically from the 6.7 million people targeted in 2025, which does not reflect improvement on the ground.
The highly prioritized response outlined in the HNRP is estimated to cost $890 million, which is significantly less than the $1.4 billion requested in 2025. However, this decrease does not reflect a reduction in human suffering, but rather the reality of the global funding crisis, which has forced a narrower focus on addressing the most severe challenges and life-threatening conditions.
The Plan prioritizes $521 million in requirements targeting 2.6 million people.
Crisis in Myanmar: Overlooked and severely underfunded
Myanmar, often overlooked by the global media, remains one of the world's most dire and underfunded humanitarian crises. Humanitarian organizations warn that millions could be left without necessary support if urgent funding is not mobilized. The humanitarian situation in Myanmar has continued to deteriorate since the military takeover in February 2021. Intensifying conflict, recurrent disasters, and economic collapse have led to increased humanitarian needs.
Armed conflicts, including airstrikes, artillery fire, and ambushes, have resulted in displacement of civilians. Access challenges, underfunding, and service disruptions have left many essential needs unmet.
In the first half of 2025, Myanmar ranked second globally for conflict intensity and as the fourth most dangerous country for civilians, with more than half of the population exposed to conflict. The security situation for civilians is deteriorating, protection risks are severe, and the resilience of communities is stretched to the breaking point.
In March 2025, a devastating earthquake struck central Myanmar — the strongest in over a century and one of the deadliest in recent history. The disaster impacted key agricultural regions, destroying crops, irrigation systems, and grain stores and threatening the food security of 2 million people affected by the disaster. The earthquake damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of houses, dozens of roads and bridges, and nearly 70 health facilities, severely disrupting access to essential services.
More than 12 million people in Myanmar will face acute hunger in 2026, with a projected one million people hitting emergency levels that will require lifesaving assistance, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Intensifying conflict and a sharp jump in displacement now risks pushing an underfunded hunger crisis to breaking point.
The people of Myanmar already face dire levels of hunger; a place where mothers cannot afford enough food to sustain their health, and malnutrition has become a new reality for thousands of children. More than 400,000 young children and mothers with acute malnutrition are surviving on nutrient-deprived diets of plain rice or watery porridge.
“Conflict and deprivation are converging to strip away people’s basic means of survival, yet the world isn’t paying attention,” said Michael Dunford, WFP Country Director in Myanmar.
“This is one of the worst hunger crises on the planet, and one of the least funded. We cannot allow this level of suffering to remain invisible. The scale of need is far outpacing our ability to respond.”
In 2026, due to a lack of funds, the WFP plans to help only 1.3 million people — a fraction of the more than 12 million people facing hunger who need assistance.
This year, severe underfunding limited the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver planned life-saving and protection assistance, as only 26 percent of HNRP requirements were met. Meanwhile, funding for the earthquake response has reached 66 percent of the $275 million flash addendum to date.
“In 2025, underfunding left millions of people without aid and without the support they needed to stay safe, fed and protected,” said Lewis.
“Families were pushed into impossible choices, with many skipping meals, taking dangerous journeys, and exposing themselves to serious risks simply to survive.”
She added that the world “simply cannot allow this to happen again next year.”
Despite these challenges, aid agencies reached 5 million people in the first nine months of 2025 and are expected to provide at least one intervention to 5.7 million people by the end of the year. However, the depth and frequency of the support provided has, in many cases, been insufficient.
Deadly attack strikes hospital in Rakhine State
Amidst this worsening crisis, there have been numerous reports of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities.
On Wednesday, the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) reportedly carried out an airstrike on the general hospital in Mrauk-U Township, killing over 30 civilians and injuring over 70 others, including patients, caregivers, and medical staff. Many of those injured are in critical condition.
On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reiterated that medical facilities and civilians, including medical personnel, must be respected and protected. The UN has condemned this attack, which is part of a broader pattern of strikes that continue to devastate communities across the country by causing harm to civilians and civilian objects.
Wednesday’s airstrike follows the bombing of another health facility by the Myanmar military in the Sagaing region on November 24. That strike killed at least six people and injured several others.
Over the past months, an intensification of aerial attacks by the Myanmar military has been recorded. The World Health Organization says it has verified 67 attacks on healthcare facilities in Myanmar this year alone, underscoring the grave and deteriorating situation facing civilians.
On Thursday, the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) released a statement calling on all parties to the conflict to uphold the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
“It is difficult to convey how outraged MSF is by the attack on one of the few remaining functioning medical facilities in the area,” said Paul Brockmann, MSF operations manager for Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.
“Bombing of health facilities, patients being killed in their beds, this cannot be perceived as collateral damage in conflict zone. Hospitals must remain a safe place for patients to receive medical care.”
Brockmann added that the destruction of one of the last operational hospitals in Central Rakhine will further restrict access to healthcare, including life-saving treatment, for civilians caught in the fighting.
“In Rakhine, access to healthcare has already severely decreased in recent years due to the ongoing conflict. Numerous medical facilities have been damaged, and many health professionals have been forced to flee due to ongoing violence,” he said.
“The same pattern has been recorded across many areas of Myanmar.”
MSF was forced to suspend operations across most of Rakhine last year due to an extreme escalation of the conflict and currently has a limited presence, primarily in the town of Sittwe.
Further information
Full text: Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), published December 10, 2025
https://humanitarianaction.info/plan/1505