Humanitarian Catastrophe

The United Nations and Ethiopia’s Federal Government - in a joint statement Thursday - have called for urgent funding, to respond to food insecurity across northern regions as an estimated 4 million people in Tigray, Afar, Amhara, and parts of the Oromia, Southern and Southwest regions are affected by devastating drought. While the situation in many of these areas is already alarming, there is still an opportunity to avert a serious humanitarian catastrophe, the UN and the Government stressed.

More than eleven months into the armed conflict in Sudan, 24 million children are at risk of a “generational catastrophe”, and their rights to life, survival, protection, education, health, and development have all been gravely violated, a UN committee has said. To mark nearly a year of brutality against Sudanese children, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) issued a statement on Monday, urging Sudan to immediately put an end to these grave violations and stop recruiting children into its armed forces.

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.

The entire population in the Gaza Strip faces an imminent risk of famine, with more than half a million people already in catastrophic conditions, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns. Meanwhile, after days of intense negotiations on a humanitarian pause and the delivery of aid to the war-torn Gaza Strip, the United States abstained Friday on a United Nations Security Council (SC) resolution, allowing its adoption by the 15-member body.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — the world’s leading authority on acute food security — says that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where access to food and other essential goods and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels. An IPC alert published Tuesday highlights that two out of three famine thresholds have been exceeded in parts of the territory.

A new joint United Nations report warns that people in five hunger hotspots — Sudan, Palestine (Occupied Palestinian Territory), South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali — face extreme hunger, starvation, and death in the next five months unless urgent humanitarian action is swiftly taken to de-escalate conflict, stop displacement, and provide full-scale aid.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed his profound concerns about escalating violence and “bellicose rhetoric” between Israel and Hezbollah along the Blue Line, the demarcation between Israeli and Lebanese armed forces. He warned Friday that the risk of a wider conflict in the Middle East is real - and must be avoided. The warning comes as Lebanon is already facing a severe humanitarian crisis due to socio-economic shocks, ongoing political instability and spillover from the Syrian crisis.

In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday confirmed that Palestinians have a right to be protected from acts of genocide, ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent actions that amount to genocide. Among the provisional measures, the Court also ordered Israel to allow the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the war-shattered enclave and to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services to Palestinians there.

Israel's air and ground operations in the Gaza Strip since October 7 last year have killed more than 27,300 people, about 70 percent of them women and children, injured more than 66,000 and left at least 8,000 missing, most of them presumed dead. At the same time, the needs of more than two million people trapped in Gaza, already facing a humanitarian catastrophe, are at risk of becoming even more dire following the decision by 18 donor countries to suspend financial contributions to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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.

United Nations agencies warn that South Sudan continues to face a severe food and nutrition crisis which threatens to worsen unless urgent humanitarian action is mounted. According to the latest food security report, over half of South Sudan's population — around 7.56 million people — will experience crisis-level or worse hunger during the lean season from April to July 2026 while, in the coming months, tens of thousands are at risk of famine.

Due to the wide-reaching impacts of Israel’s war and its ongoing blocking of aid deliveries, famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in northern Gaza, according to a new report published today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The rest of the Gaza Strip is also at the risk of famine if hostilities do not cease and humanitarian assistance at scale does not reach those most in need.

A scheduled four-day truce in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas came into effect Friday morning at 7 a.m. local time (5 a.m. GMT). According to Qatari officials, who brokered the deal, the truce includes a comprehensive cease-fire in north and south Gaza. According to the deal, which was reportedly facilitated by Egypt and the United States, 50 women and children, who were abducted from Israel by Hamas on October 7, are to be released in exchange for Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, has strongly condemned indiscriminate attacks in the town of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. Local authorities reported that at least 97 civilians were killed or injured when a hospital, a cattle market and residential areas came under attack on Saturday.

A prominent international human rights group is calling for the deployment of a protection force in Sudan following a recent wave of attacks on civilians in Al Jazirah state, widely blamed on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the warring sides in the country's ongoing conflict. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Sunday that the situation has become so grim that a mission is needed to protect the Sudanese population.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is calling for immediate, unimpeded and safe access to conflict-hit areas of Sudan to provide food to millions of displaced people facing acute hunger, amid warnings that this “forgotten war” has potential implications for regional stability. The UN agency says more than nine months of conflict have taken an unimaginable toll on civilians. WFP calls the situation beyond dire, noting that almost 18 million people are facing acute hunger.

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 United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a stark warning for global food security, estimating that every one percent cut in food assistance risks pushing more than 400,000 people towards the brink of starvation. Tuesday’s warning comes as WFP, the biggest recipient of humanitarian funding, is in the midst of a crippling financing crisis that is forcing the organization to scale back life-saving assistance at a time when acute hunger globally reached record levels. 

The IPC Famine Review Committee (FRC) issued an alert on Friday warning that famine is likely imminent in areas of the northern Gaza Strip, while the humanitarian situation throughout the territory is extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating. Meanwhile, a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of committing serious violations of international law in Gaza, many of which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.