International Humanitarian Law

Alarming reports are emerging of new atrocities being committed in a concerted campaign of violence and destruction by non-state armed groups and the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) against members of the Rohingya people in northern Rakhine State. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days in relation to fighting in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. Some 45,000 Rohingya have reportedly fled to areas near the border with Bangladesh.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday that violent clashes in parts of the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) continue to harm civilians and force them to flee their homes. In parallel, the ongoing conflict in the east of the country has exacerbated the food crisis, with an estimated 27.7 million Congolese facing acute hunger.

The number of people killed in several days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of former President Bashar al-Assad, followed by large-scale massacres, has risen to more than 1,000, a human rights monitoring group said on Saturday, marking some of the deadliest violence since Syria's civil war began 14 years ago. Since Thursday, escalating hostilities in the governorates of Tartus, Lattakia, Homs and Hama have also resulted in civilian injuries, displacement and damage to civilian infrastructure.

More than ten months into the Gaza war, civilians are crammed into an ever-shrinking space without adequate access to water, food, sanitation or health care. They are repeatedly uprooted by evacuation orders, which also disrupt the aid centers that are supposed to assist them. More than 88 percent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or declared a "no-go zone" by Israeli security forces, confining up to 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to about 11 percent of the tiny territory.

More than 60 million forcibly displaced or stateless women and girls around the world are at high risk of gender-based violence (GBV), according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).  While GBV remains one of the world's most widespread human rights violations, UNHCR warns that the risks are heightened for women and girls living in situations of war and conflict or who have been forced to flee their homes.

The United Nations says Sudan's warring parties appear headed for major clashes in the North Darfur city of El Fasher, where hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) have sought refuge. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are reportedly encircling El Fasher, suggesting that a coordinated move to attack the city may be imminent. At the same time, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) appear to be positioning themselves.

A top United Nations agency says the occupied Gaza Strip is "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child" as Israel's military bombardment of the territory kills and injures thousands of children and thousands more suffer from infectious disease and a lack of food, water and medicine in overcrowded, unsanitary hospitals and shelters. As of Wednesday, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli operations. Among the dead are more than 8,000 children.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip due to the wide-reaching impacts of Israel’s war and its ongoing blocking of aid deliveries. At least 31 people - including 27 children - have died of hunger and dehydration in recent weeks. Since October 7, more than 13,450 children have been killed in the tiny territory, according to Gaza officials.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that some 400,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government on December 8 last year. Over the same period, more than one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Syria have also returned, bringing the total number of Syrians who have gone home to over 1.4 million.

Nearly half a billion children - more than one in six of the world's children - now live in areas affected by war and conflict, with the world experiencing the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in an analysis released Saturday. In 2024, it is estimated that more children than ever before will either live in conflict zones or be forcibly displaced by conflict and violence.