Although global hunger levels have declined slightly, they remain alarmingly high. An estimated 8.2 percent of the global population, or around 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, which is down from 8.5 percent in 2023 and 8.7 percent in 2022. However, progress was not consistent worldwide, as hunger continued to rise in most subregions of Africa and Western Asia, according to a new report published on Monday by five United Nations agencies.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for an urgent and significant scale-up of interventions and funding to respond to the escalating number of cases of sexual violence reported against children and women in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo). Gender-based violence (GBV) against girls and women in North Kivu province increased by 37 percent during the first three months of 2023 compared to the same period a year ago, UNICEF said on Thursday.
Tackling insecurity in Haiti, where gang violence has killed and injured thousands and displaced tens of thousands, must be the utmost priority, a United Nations report released on Friday said, urging Haitian authorities and the international community to do more to protect people and prevent further suffering. The Caribbean nation is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, with more than 5.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
A senior United Nations official has called Wednesday for a negotiated solution to the conflict in Sudan, saying there is no alternative. Meanwhile, UN agencies warn health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A senior United Nations official warned Wednesday that "immediate action" is needed to stop fighting in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur State, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are at risk. Sudan's brutal war has now lasted 17 months, with no end in sight to the humanitarian catastrophe it has caused.
A new report by the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) reveals that most people in Myanmar are united in defying military authoritarianism and violence. The report calls for renewed international resolve to end the military’s stranglehold on power. Driven by relentless violence, systemic impunity, and economic collapse, a spiraling human rights crisis has left civilians caught in the crossfire of an increasingly brutal conflict resulting in a dire humanitarian crisis.
As the flames of war continue to engulf Sudan, the United Nations Security Council was urged Monday to prevent the horrors of this conflict from recurring and to stop those enabling the violence from spreading instability further across the region. Escalating violence in Sudan is placing civilians at extreme risk and triggering new waves of displacement, particularly in the Kordofan region.
The United Nations and humanitarian organizations cautiously welcomed the 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon that took effect at midnight local time on Friday. According to aid agencies, some displaced families have begun returning to Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reports that its peacekeepers have not detected any projectiles fired from north to south or airstrikes in their area of operations since midnight.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned on Tuesday that over 165,000 people have fled increasing tensions and conflict in South Sudan in the past three months, seeking safety both within the country and across borders, thereby deepening an already dire humanitarian situation across the region. With more than 2.3 million South Sudanese living as refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, South Sudan remains one of the largest displacement crises in Africa.
Nearly 580,000 people, including 300,000 children, are internally displaced across Haiti, a 60 percent increase since March, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN agency says the rise is due to the deterioration of the security situation in the metropolitan area of Port-Au-Prince, the country's capital, particularly between the end of February and April. Haiti is now the country with the largest number of displacements globally due to crime-related violence.
A United Nations-backed food security report concluded Thursday that more than a year of war in Sudan has pushed parts of North Darfur into famine, including a displaced persons camp that houses more than half a million people. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is urgently calling on all warring parties to allow humanitarian food assistance by freeing up key access points within the country and at its borders.
August 25 marked the eighth anniversary of the beginning of a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State in 2017, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Eight years later, Rohingya people — both refugees and those remaining in Myanmar — face a further deterioration of their bleak circumstances.
The United Nations and humanitarian partner organizations in Malawi have launched a Flash Appeal Monday to assist 4 million people, including 56,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, who have been hardest-hit by cholera and are at highest-risk of the disease. Local health experts say if urgent action isn't taken to scale up the response, the number of cases could double in the next few months.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk has warned that intensified fighting in Myanmar's Rakhine State between the military and the non-state armed group Arakan Army (AA), as well as tensions between the Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine communities, pose a grave threat to civilians. In a statement on Friday, Türk warned of the grave risk of a repeat of past atrocities, such as the horrific state-backed persecution of the Rohingya in 2017.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 600,000 people have been affected by recent floods in Mozambique. The catastrophic flooding has caused massive disruption to lives and livelihoods across the country, increasing the risk of disease and exposing urban areas to crocodiles.
United Nations officials have appealed for international support to help Zimbabwe cope with the humanitarian impact of a historic drought that has left 7.6 million people at risk of acute hunger. More than half of the harvest has been destroyed due to a drought caused by the warming El Niño episode in 2023-2024.
A toxic mix of conflict, severe drought and devastating floods has forced more than 1 million people in Somalia to flee their homes since the beginning of this year – a record rate of displacement for the country, reported the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Wednesday.
The ongoing ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is allowing United Nations agencies to provide life-saving food to more desperate people, but the UN warns that greater access is necessary to prevent famine from spreading. Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, the World Food Programme (WFP) has brought in over 6,700 metric tons of food — enough to feed nearly half a million people for two weeks. However, this falls far short of the daily target of around 2,000 tons.
The outbreak of the deadly Bundibugyo species of Ebola in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is expanding, while the push to accelerate testing and identify effective treatment options continues, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, health authorities report more than 1,560 confirmed Ebola cases across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, with Ituri remaining the epicenter of the outbreak.
Children make up about half of all armed gang members in Haiti, the head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday, calling for their protection to be stepped up. Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) says it is ramping up its operations in Haiti in the face of a hunger crisis caused mainly by violence and displacement. Some 5.5 million Haitians are in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024, a number that is expected to rise.
