Climate Change

In Malawi and Mozambique, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record has left a trail of destruction and continues to cause extensive damage and loss of lives from torrential rains and strong winds. Cyclone Freddy hit Mozambique a second time on Saturday night and has before devastated parts of Malawi, killed at least 292 people in both countries, and left tens of thousands homeless. Dozens of people are reported missing.

Funding constraints mean that the World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to limit emergency aid to only 6.2 million of the most vulnerable people in need across West Africa, scaling back from an initial target of assisting 11.6 million, the United Nations agency said on Wednesday. Millions in the Sahel will be stranded without aid as the lean season sets in and hunger starts to peak. 

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), humanitarian operations in Niger are currently on hold following the attempted coup in the country. The United Nations, the United States, the West African economic bloc ECOWAS, the African Union and the European Union have called for the release of Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, after a group of soldiers claimed to have removed him from power Wednesday. President Bazoum has urged democratic forces in the country to resist the power grab.

Following the signing of a peace agreement earlier this month, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered over 2,400 metric tons of food, medical, nutrition and other lifesaving supplies to Ethiopia’s Tigray region. However, the UN agency warned in a statement Friday that deliveries of humanitarian assistance within Tigray are not matching the needs. WFP and its partners organizations urgently need access to all parts of the northern region to deliver food and nutrition assistance to the most vulnerable people.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and its humanitarian partners are urgently preparing to assist up to 150,000 Rohingya refugees who have arrived in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, over the past 18 months. Targeted violence and persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, as well as the ongoing war in the neighboring country, have forced thousands of Rohingya to seek protection in Bangladesh.

The United Nations' top humanitarian official issued a blunt warning on Monday about a mounting "age of indifference" as funding for essential aid programs continues to dwindle. Addressing journalists at the UN headquarters in New York, Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, highlighted a critical shortfall in resources and the escalating threats facing humanitarian workers worldwide.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today it has been forced to cut the number of people receiving emergency food assistance in Haiti by 25 percent in July, compared to the previous month, due to dwindling funding levels. This means 100,000 of the most vulnerable Haitians are forced to get by without any support by the UN agency this month amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Acute food insecurity is on track to reach a ten-year high in the Sahel and West Africa by June of this year - a new study shows - with a worrying expansion of food insecurity into coastal countries, and catastrophic levels of hunger hitting conflict-affected areas of Burkina Faso and Mali where humanitarian assistance is severely hindered by insecurity. 

Amid the ongoing humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan, United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are urgently calling for international support as the country faces one of the largest return movements in recent history. According to the latest UN figures, more than 2.2 million Afghans returned or were forced to return from Iran and Pakistan in 2025 alone. Over 1.8 million came from Iran and nearly 400,000 arrived from Pakistan.

Just weeks after thousands of Rohingya refugees lost their homes to Cyclone Mocha, they face another blow as funding shortages force the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to cut food vouchers in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to just US$ 8, or less than 9 cents per meal. The UN agency said Friday that funding shortfalls had already led to a cut in food aid earlier this year.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued an alert on Thursday regarding the impact of armed violence on civilians in southeastern parts of the Central African Republic (CAR). Though the situation has improved in parts of the country, violence continues to exacerbate the situation in several regions, including the southeast, where approximately 50,000 people require humanitarian assistance.

A hunger emergency is looming on the border between South Sudan and Sudan as families fleeing fighting in Sudan continue to cross the border every day, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday. New data shows that among the nearly 300,000 people who have arrived in South Sudan in the last five months, one in five children are malnourished and 90 percent of families say they are going multiple days without eating.

This week marks the sixth anniversary since over 700,000 Rohingya women, men and children fled Myanmar to Bangladesh, following coordinated attacks by the Myanmar military. They joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had previously sought refuge in the country. The United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are calling this week for renewed commitment from the international community to sustain the humanitarian response for nearly one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

A combination of protracted armed conflict, internal displacement, and restricted humanitarian access risks pushing nearly one million children under the age of five in Mali into acute malnutrition by December 2023 – with at least 200,000 at risk of dying of hunger if life-saving aid fails to reach them, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a joined statement Friday.

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.

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2025, published on Thursday, paints a bleak picture of the world's progress towards the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of achieving zero hunger by 2030. With at least 56 countries projected to miss the low hunger threshold, and 42 currently experiencing serious or alarming levels of hunger, the report emphasizes the need for renewed commitment and urgent action.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday that without urgent funding, life-saving food aid in Africa's Sahel region will come to a halt in April 2025. The warning comes as the lean season, the period between harvests when hunger peaks, is expected to arrive earlier than usual across the region this year. Millions of children, women and men, including refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), continue to rely on WFP food assistance to survive.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) Save the Children says more than 140,000 people in the Malian town of Menaka, including 80,000 children, face malnutrition and disease due to a blockade by Islamic State-linked insurgents. The humanitarian organization warns that the months-long blockade has driven supplies to alarmingly low levels as aid agencies and Malian government programs struggle to deliver basic necessities.

Large parts of Burkina Faso are "terrorized by armed groups" and rampant insecurity is "beyond alarming," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said this week after a brief visit to the country. During his first trip to the country in his new role, Türk expressed solidarity with the people of Burkina Faso and held high-level talks on the human rights and humanitarian situation in the central Sahel country.