Humanitarian Crisis

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.

United States national Cindy McCain took over Wednesday as the new head of the World Food Programme (WFP). The new Executive Director said in her first statement that her priorities for the United Nations agency were increasing its resources, improving its effectiveness and scaling up partnerships and innovation.

Families in Sudan are eating grass to survive in an escalating hunger crisis, with famine-level malnutrition spreading across half of Sudan's 18 states, the international humanitarian organization Save the Children warned on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United Nations reports that fighting continues to rage in North Darfur, West Darfur, Khartoum, North Kordofan and Al Jazira states, despite repeated calls for the warring parties to cease fighting, ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate humanitarian access.

Somalia and the United Nations have appealed Wednesday for $2.6 billion (€ 2.4 billion) to aid millions of Somalis facing hunger as the country remains gripped by a record-setting drought. Somalia has been struggling against famine-like conditions that aid groups say are forcing thousands of people to flee from the countryside into cities seeking help.

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. 

The United Nations’ top aid official in Ukraine expressed concern on Friday about the “continuous attacks” on energy production sites and distribution facilities. The heavy humanitarian and psychological toll of these Russian strikes is compounded by the expectation that this winter will be much colder than last year and that the rate of destruction of energy infrastructure may exceed the recovery rate.

Earth just experienced its hottest three months on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). At the same time, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports global sea surface temperatures are at unprecedented highs for the third consecutive month and Antarctic sea ice extent remains at a record low for the time of year. The developments come as the climate crisis is already having a devastating impact on people and ecosystems and fueling hunger and conflict in the world's worst crisis hotspots.

Amid the country's protracted political, security, and humanitarian crises, the United Nations envoy for Yemen, stressed the urgent need on Thursday to relaunch a comprehensive and inclusive political process to achieve a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Briefing the UN Security Council, Hans Grundberg also expressed serious concerns about the continued detention of UN staff and other personnel by the Houthi de facto authorities.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday that the scale and severity of hunger and malnutrition in Afghanistan is worsening. New food security figures from the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report show that over 17 million Afghans are facing acute hunger this winter — three million more than last year.

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 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the humanitarian community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been forced to reprioritize its response plan due to critical funding shortfalls. The move is part of a "Humanitarian Reset," following a dramatic drop in funding triggered by the United States' brutal cessation of most contributions and cuts to humanitarian assistance by other major donors around the world.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is sounding the alarm as the ongoing violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) reaches devastating levels. Two years of cyclical conflict in the North Kivu territories of Rutshuru and Masisi have forced more than 1.3 million people to flee their homes within the DRC, resulting in a total of 5.7 million internally displaced people in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri.

Renewed Israeli airstrikes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed hundreds of people, including more than 100 children, and injured hundreds of others, Gaza officials said. The collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza and the large-scale civilian deaths have been met with shock by senior United Nations officials and humanitarian organizations around the world.

The international non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE has called Monday on the international community to pay attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan and increase funding. The war in Sudan, which entered its tenth month last week, continues to cause extreme suffering for millions across the country and in neighboring states, with women and children experiencing the conflict’s impacts most acutely.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is urgently appealing for funds to provide life-saving food assistance to two million people in Malawi who are facing the devastating effects of drought. Today's appeal comes just days after Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera declared a state of disaster.  Malawi, like other countries in Southern Africa, is grappling with the effects of a severe period of dry weather, exacerbated by the effects of the El Niño phenomenon.

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.