Food Insecurity

United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that three months into Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, the territory has become uninhabitable, and aid workers are left with the "impossible mission" of supporting more than 2 million people.  Also Friday, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned while thousands of children have already died from violence, living conditions for children continue to rapidly deteriorate in Gaza, raising the risk of mounting child deaths.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has expressed concern over the escalation of armed conflict in South Sudan's Upper Nile state, which has displaced at least 20,000 people since August, some of whom have been forced to flee for their lives up to four times. In a statement Wednesday, the UN agency warned that at least 3,000 people have already fled to neighboring Sudan, further exacerbating the refugee crisis in South Sudan, the largest in Africa.

The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) reports that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have carried out brutal attacks on the besieged city of El Fasher and the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sudan’s North Darfur State which hosts some 25,000 children, women, and men. These attacks resulted in the killing of at least 89 civilians over a ten-day period until Wednesday.

Analysts warn that rivalries among Tigrayan political leaders in northern Ethiopia threaten to derail the process of reintegrating the Tigray region into Ethiopia's federal structure, and could rapidly escalate into a wider conflict involving Eritrea. More than two years after a ceasefire ended the war between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), in which an estimated 600,000 people died, Tigray remains highly fragile.

Violence against children in the central Sahel region increased sharply in the last quarter of 2023, surging by 70 percent compared to the previous three months, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday. The UN agency said that in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, cases of recruitment and use of children by armed groups, as well as killings and maiming, jumped by more than 130 percent between the two reporting periods.

Nearly 11 months of war in Sudan has shattered millions of lives and created one of the world's largest displacement crises. The humanitarian emergency also risks becoming the world's largest hunger crisis if the fighting does not stop, warned United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain on Wednesday as she concluded a visit to South Sudan, where she met families fleeing violence and an escalating hunger emergency in Sudan.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has lifted its suspension of operations in Sudan, as the fighting there threatens millions with hunger. The WFP had paused its work in the country when three staff members were killed in North Darfur on April 15 - the first day of the conflict between Sudan’s army and a paramilitary unit, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

A leading United Nations official on Friday urged the international community to immediately scale up its support for children and families to avert a worsening humanitarian emergency across Ethiopia. Some 21.4 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian assistance this year, including 12 million children.

As the Israeli government’s ongoing siege starves the people of Gaza, 115 humanitarian organizations have sounded the alarm on Wednesday, urging governments to act. The organizations demand decisive action, including opening all land crossings and restoring the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled United Nations–led mechanism. They also demand an end to the siege and a ceasefire now.

More than 100 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined forces on Wednesday to demand an end to Israel’s weaponization of aid, which exacerbates the appalling suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. While famine unfolds in the territory, with people dying daily due to malnutrition and starvation, the Israeli government's threat to ban major aid organizations from operating in Gaza worsens the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe even further.

Amid the catastrophic human rights situation and dire humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean country, the UN human rights expert for Haiti has called on all states not to forcibly return anyone to Haiti. This statement comes as more than 121,000 women, children, and men have been deported to Haiti between January and June of this year.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says thousands have been displaced after clashes broke out Friday morning between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the outskirts of the Sudanese town of Wad Madani. As of Sunday, the fighting in the capital of Al-Jazirah State, located some 136 km southeast of Sudan’s national capital Khartoum, is ongoing.

Amid rising regional tensions and a worsening humanitarian situation, all actors must put the interests of the Yemeni people first in order to restore peace and stability in the country, Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy for Yemen, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Grundberg warned that as the military escalation in the Middle East intensifies, Yemen risks being dragged further into it.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) says the number of civilians harmed across South Sudan in 2022 has slightly increased, despite a 27 percent decrease in the overall number of documented violent incidents compared to the previous year. On Friday, the mission's Human Rights Division released its annual report on violence affecting civilians, documenting 3,469 civilian victims affected mostly by killing, injury, abduction, and conflict-related sexual violence.

The United Nations Security Council has voted Monday to authorize an international force to support Haiti’s police amid a gang-driven security crisis. Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, 13 of the 15 council members voted for the non-UN Multinational Security Support Mission. China and Russia abstained. Haiti has repeated called for help in supporting its national police.

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.

More than 2.5 million people in Nigeria are in need of humanitarian assistance and at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the most severe flooding in the past decade, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned in a statement Friday. Over 1.5 million children are among those affected by the floods.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says the devastating human rights crisis in Sudan has created the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on Thursday, Volker Türk also warned of an increasing risk of atrocity crimes and mass deaths from famine as a result of the conflict, which began in April 2023.

The United Nations says the security situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate, as gang violence is growing and major crimes reach record levels. Briefing the UN Security Council (SC) Monday, the UN special envoy to the country, María Isabel Salvador, also stressed the enormous significance of SC resolution 2699, adopted earlier this month, authorizing the establishment and deployment of a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission.