Humanitarian Response Plan

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that the severe drought in Somalia is putting millions of lives at risk, while humanitarian aid remains severely limited due to dwindling funds. On Monday, the Somali government declared a nationwide drought emergency. The drought is particularly severe in the eastern and northern regions but is spreading to central and southern Somalia as well.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the escalation of hostilities in north-west Syria has developed rapidly since Tuesday night. Shelling and airstrikes on front lines in the cities of Idleb and western Aleppo have escalated, leading to clashes and changes of control between warring parties. The renewed fighting has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian situation.

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.

The United Nations Security Council overcame weeks of inaction and bickering Wednesday to issue a call for "extended humanitarian pauses" in the Gaza Strip, especially for the protection of children, only to have the Israeli government immediately reject the measure. Meanwhile, Israeli bombardments from the air, sea, and land continue across Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians every day; the majority of them are children and women. 

The United Nations and international aid agencies are warning that the lives of millions of people in Sudan are at risk as the world turns its attention away from the enormous humanitarian needs facing the war-torn country. Today, Sudan entered a year of war that many have called the world's largest human-made crisis, with half the population in need of life-saving assistance, tens of thousands killed and injured, and millions uprooted from their homes.

Hurricane Melissa — a powerful storm that made landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale — is currently sweeping across Cuba, devastating the region and leaving dozens dead. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), evacuations, preparations, and relief efforts are ongoing as Melissa continues to impact the Caribbean.

Amid the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Sudan, the heads of over 50 human rights and humanitarian organizations have sounded the alarm and called for more aid, solidarity and attention to the Sudan Crisis. In an open letter published Wednesday, the leaders of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also urged the United Nations Security Council (UN SC) to act. Meanwhile, the UN SC heard briefings on the ongoing atrocities in the country and those responsible for committing them.

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 ongoing political instability and armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, DRC) have devastated food production and distribution systems, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the non-governmental organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned today that extreme levels of violence, hunger, and displacement receive “scant funding, media apathy, and neglect”, as recent months have brought a dramatic deterioration in the situation in the eastern part of the country.

A leading United Nations official on Friday urged the international community to immediately scale up its support for children and families to avert a worsening humanitarian emergency across Ethiopia. Some 21.4 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian assistance this year, including 12 million children.

The United Nations expressed its concern today over the deteriorating human rights situation in some regions of Ethiopia. In Amhara region, following a flare-up in clashes between the Ethiopian military and the regional Fano militia, and the declaration of a state of emergency in early August, the situation has worsened considerably. According to information gathered by the UN Human Rights Office, at least 183 people have been killed in clashes since July.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) are warning that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) continues to face one of the world’s largest and most severe hunger crises. This warning follows the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, which shows that over 26.5 million people—nearly one in four Congolese—are struggling to meet their basic food needs.

The humanitarian crisis in Somalia has faded from the news this year, after a historic four-year drought ended in 2023 and famine was averted, bringing relief to millions of Somalis. But UN officials and humanitarian agencies warn that needs in the country remain critically high as a lack of humanitarian funding delays recovery from the drought.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is warning that the humanitarian crisis in Haiti continues to worsen, largely due to ongoing violence. According to an OCHA update on Friday, more than 700,000 people are displaced in the country, more than half of whom are children, with the latest violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince, displacing an additional 12,000 people in recent weeks.

The United Nations says Myanmar has passed a "bleak milestone," with more than 3 million civilians now displaced across the country amid intensifying conflict. The number has risen sharply, by 50 percent in just six months, according to the UN's ad interim humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, Stephen Anderson.  The situation is one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with nearly 19 million people nationwide in need of humanitarian assistance this year.

South Sudan is facing a rapidly worsening food security crisis demanding urgent donor attention, according to an advocacy note released Friday by the Food Security and Livelihoods Cluster (FSLC). The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis shows that 7.8 million people — more than half the population — are experiencing crisis-level hunger (IPC3) or worse. This includes 2.5 million people facing emergency levels (IPC4) and 73,000 people facing famine conditions (IPC5).