Humanitarian Crisis

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 refugee agency (UNHCR) is extremely concerned about the devastating consequences for displaced people of recurring attacks by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) and is calling for humanitarian efforts to be urgently supported. With 7.5 million displaced women, children, and men, the situation in the DRC is one of the world’s most complex and protracted humanitarian crises. 

The United Nations Friday deplored the horrendous civilian cost of the war in Ukraine, as the country marked 500 days since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion. The UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said it was able to confirm that more than 9,000 civilians, including over 500 children, have been killed since Russia’s February 24, 2022 attack.

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.

The United Nations says it remains deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Haiti amid ongoing gang violence and sporadic clashes between heavily armed gangs and police forces in some parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. At least 15,000 people have been displaced by the clashes, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has condemned the widespread human rights violations and abuses committed on a massive scale and with impunity against migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Türk also accused Libya's leaders of crushing political dissent in order to cling to power, leaving the country divided, and its people mired in crisis, poverty and misery.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns millions of people in the greater Horn of Africa will likely face a fifth consecutive season of insufficient rains. According to the United Nations agency the terrible long drought in the Horn of Africa is set to continue for another year, which will worsen the humanitarian crisis which is impacting millions of people who already have suffered the longest drought in 40 years.

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 United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says it is gravely concerned at the latest developments in Sudan as fighting escalates in the Darfur region. UNHCR warned Friday it was receiving deeply alarming reports of continued sexual violence, torture, arbitrary killings, extortion of civilians and targeting of specific ethnic groups in the region. 

According to the United Nations, devastating Russian missile and drone strikes have killed and injured hundreds of Ukrainian civilians this month, continuing a pattern of relentless attacks far from the front lines. This comes after June saw the highest monthly number of civilian deaths and injuries in three years, with over 230 people killed and more than 1,340 injured.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun airdropping emergency food assistance to thousands of families in South Sudan's Upper Nile State, where conflict has surged since March, forcing tens of thousands from their homes and pushing some communities to the brink of famine. According to a recent UN report, South Sudan is one of the world’s top five hunger hotspots, where people face extreme hunger, starvation, and death.

United Nations investigators say that human rights violations and abuse in Syria are sowing the seeds for further violence and radicalization, despite diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation in the country, including through its re-admission to the League of Arab States. The three-member Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented this bleak outlook Friday to the UN Human Rights Council.

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 World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a Grade 3 Emergency Appeal for the Greater Horn of Africa region on Friday. The United Nations organization is asking for USD 178 million (EUR 167 million) to carry out urgent, life-saving health work in 2023 to help the Greater Horn region. WHO’s Greater Horn of Africa region includes the seven affected countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

August 25 marks the seventh anniversary of the start of a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek refuge in Bangladesh. UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday expressed grave concern about the sharply deteriorating situation across Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine, where hundreds of civilians - mostly Rohingya - have reportedly been killed while trying to flee ongoing fighting.

The UN's independent expert on human rights in Haiti, William O'Neill, said on Friday that he is deeply concerned that the outrageous attacks by gangs on hospitals, clinics and health workers in Haiti in December have further weakened a health system that is already close to collapse. Amid the deteriorating security situation, half of the country's population, some 6 million people, including 3.3 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations Security Council on Monday approved a one-year extension for a multinational police force to help Haiti's embattled national police subdue gangs in the violence-plagued Caribbean nation, and will now consider turning the mission into a full-fledged UN peacekeeping operation. Meanwhile, the number of people facing acute hunger has risen to 5.4 million, according to the latest IPC analysis released Monday.

The United Nations says that that armed group attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) have had an increasingly devastating impact on civilians, particularly in the eastern province of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. This week, the UN Joint Human Rights Office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (UNJHRO) released a report on human rights violations and abuses during the first half of the year.

Amid continuing uncertainty over the impact of deep cuts in United States funding for humanitarian work worldwide, the head of the United Nations program coordinating the fight against HIV/AIDS warned on Monday that an additional 6.3 million people will die over the next four years if support is not restored. Several UN agencies have also recently warned that the radical cut in US support - on top of chronic underinvestment in humanitarian work worldwide - is putting millions of lives at risk across the globe.