Humanitarian Organizations

Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority, victims of a brutal campaign of mass atrocities and persecution by the country's military in 2016 and 2017, is again facing a wave of deadly violence that raises the "specter of ethnic cleansing." This time, however, the perpetrators are said to be the Arakan Army (AA), one of several ethnic groups fighting the nation's ruling junta, as well as Myanmar's security forces, according to survivors and human rights groups.

Food is slowly returning to the Gaza Strip amid "apocalyptic scenes", but UN humanitarian officials said on Tuesday that supplies are still desperately inadequate. They issued fresh calls for wider access and more border crossings to be opened, as well as continued financial support. Since the resumption of general food distributions on October 13, nearly half of Gaza's population has received food parcels.

Killings, kidnappings, and sexual violence by criminal groups in and around Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, have increased dramatically since the start of 2023 with a weak to non-existent state response, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned in a report released Monday.  HRW said while international security support may be needed, it should be “part of a multi-faceted response with robust human rights safeguards.”

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.

The United Nations says more than 100,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon following a large-scale military operation launched by Israel against its northern neighbor this week. Lebanese health officials say nearly 700 people, including more than 50 children, at least 94 women and two UNHCR workers, have been killed and more than 2,000 injured by Israeli airstrikes since Monday.

The United Nations (UN) estimates at least 23,000 people have been displaced by renewed violence between the Congolese army and fighters from the M23 armed group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North-Kivu province. The estimate includes some 2,500 men, women and children who have crossed into neighboring Uganda.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it has been forced to drastically reduce critical lifesaving assistance in Afghanistan to millions of vulnerable people due to lack of funds.  In March, at least four million Afghanis will receive just half of what they need to get by.

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.

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.

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.

Fifteen months into Israel's war on Gaza, more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The horror of the situation in Gaza shows no signs of abating as the world looks the other way. Meanwhile, Israeli officials continue to systematically deny the delivery of life-saving aid in flagrant violation of international law.

The United Nations Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region has told the UN Security Council Wednesday that the fragile ceasefire between the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and the Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) rebels in North Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) seems to be holding. Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the security situation in neighboring Ituri Province remains extremely concerning due to ongoing attacks against civilians. 

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is expanding its humanitarian appeal for Sudan as more and more people flee the country's war and widespread hunger in search of safety in neighboring countries. UNHCR reports that more money is urgently needed to help and protect the swelling population of Sudanese refugees, and is revising its appeal to US$1.5 billion, up from the US$1.4 billion it requested in January.

More than one million people are now internally displaced in Haiti, according to new figures released Tuesday by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The latest data shows that 1,041,000 people are struggling amid a worsening humanitarian crisis - many of them forced to flee multiple times. According to IOM, children bear the greatest burden of forced displacement, accounting for more than half of all displaced people.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that the very real risk of famine continues to stalk Sudan’s war-impacted communities, and appealed for more funding to support immediate needs and boost longer-term recovery across the country. The appeal comes as funding shortfalls are disrupting WFP's operations across Sudan, where famine has been declared in several regions and more areas are at risk.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it is being forced to drop another 2 million hungry people from food assistance in Afghanistan in September, bringing to 10 million the number of people cut off from its support this year in the country. Due to a massive funding shortfall, WFP will only be able to provide emergency assistance to 3 million of the most vulnerable people per month, the UN agency said in a statement Tuesday.