Amid crushing global humanitarian needs and as hunger, disease and displacement continue to drive humanitarian disasters around the world, top United Nations officials on Wednesday underscored how the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) serves as a lifeline in urgent and underfunded crises. At the Fund’s annual pledging event, forty donors have announced contributions of more than US$419 million for CERF for 2024.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on Wednesday, Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), urged UN member states to act to prevent the implementation of Israeli Knesset legislation targeting UNRWA. He also urged states to maintain funding for UNRWA and not to withhold or divert funds on the assumption that the organization can no longer operate.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that Yemenis are silently suffering from hunger and malnourishment amid a severe lack of funding and ongoing insecurity that are exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. Yemen is one of the most food-insecure countries in the world and now has the highest number of people facing emergency levels of hunger.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) expressed grave concern on Tuesday as intensifying attacks on villages and the rapid spread of the conflict into previously safe districts forced tens of thousands of people to flee across northern Mozambique. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), recent attacks have displaced some 108,000 people from Memba District in Nampula Province alone.
According to the international humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the number of people forced to flee their homes in Colombia has doubled since the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was signed eight years ago. While more than 130,000 people were forced to flee in Colombia in 2016, NRC estimates that the number of newly displaced people will exceed 260,000 in 2024.
Two years on from the Hamas-led large-scale attacks that triggered Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, it is Palestinian civilians who continue to bear the brunt of this conflict, with widespread atrocity crimes being committed by Israeli forces. Following the latest military assault, the situation in the territory, where a man-made famine has been confirmed, has further deteriorated, leaving more than two million people fighting for survival. Meanwhile, talks on a US-driven peace plan continued on Tuesday in Egypt, raising glimmers of hope for an end to the brutal conflict.
Nearly 3 million children – the highest number on record – need humanitarian support in Haiti, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned Thursday. Children face staggering levels of violence that have exacerbated hunger and malnutrition in a country already mired in poverty and a resurgence of cholera. Meanwhile, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held a special meeting Friday on food insecurity in Haiti amid the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country.
The United Nations, humanitarian partners and the Somali government have Tuesday released the 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) for Somalia, which seeks US$1.6 billion to help 5.2 million of the 6.9 million people in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance and protection this year. Although a historic multi-year drought ended in 2023 and Somalia successfully averted famine, humanitarian needs in the country remain high.
A new report by the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) released on Friday accuses all parties involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) eastern provinces of North and South Kivu of committing severe violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report comes as continued violence in the eastern part of the country continues to claim civilian lives and cause new displacement.
Analysts warn that rivalries among Tigrayan political leaders in northern Ethiopia threaten to derail the process of reintegrating the Tigray region into Ethiopia's federal structure, and could rapidly escalate into a wider conflict involving Eritrea. More than two years after a ceasefire ended the war between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), in which an estimated 600,000 people died, Tigray remains highly fragile.
The heads of more than a dozen United Nations agencies and international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have issued a rare joint statement Friday calling for action to address the crisis gripping the Central Sahel as exacerbating humanitarian and protection needs are threatening to reverse development gains. In 2024, some 17 million people – one fifth of the population - in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.
According to Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Center (DMC), at least 390 people have been killed and more than 350 are missing after Tropical Cyclone Ditwah made landfall on Thursday, bringing heavy rainfall and destructive winds across the country. The storm triggered widespread flooding and landslides, believed to be the worst in recent history. Over 1.3 million people have been affected across all 25 districts. As of Tuesday, approximately 215,000 people have been displaced and are sheltering in over 1,300 government-run safety centers.
Nearly 3,000 people have been killed in fighting between the Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) rebel group and the Congolese army for control of Goma, a key eastern city and the capital of North Kivu province, a senior United Nations official in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, DR Congo) said on Wednesday. The fighting has displaced at least 700,000 people in Goma and surrounding areas since early January, creating a dire humanitarian situation.
The heads of more than a dozen United Nations agencies and international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have issued a rare joint statement Sunday calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Gaza officials reported today that more than 10,000 Palestinians - including more than 4,100 children - have been killed since October 7 by Israel’s retaliatory attacks against the tiny enclave.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concludes in a new report released Wednesday that Russian armed forces have committed crimes against humanity by murdering civilians with drones. The report states that the drone attacks have been widespread and systematic, and have been conducted as part of a coordinated state policy. These findings come as Russian airstrikes continue to kill and maim civilians, including children, and destroy civilian infrastructure.
In Ethiopia, hostilities continue in the northern part of the country, with reports of new displacement of civilians and increased humanitarian needs, the United Nations (UN) said today in a briefing. While the situation in the northern regions of Afar, Tigray and Amhara remains tense, the UN and its partner organizations continue to provide humanitarian aid to the affected people where security allows.
United Nations agency chiefs have urged the UN Security Council to renew a resolution guaranteeing cross-border aid access to north-west Syria, warning that without it, millions of people, especially those displaced for years and multiple times, will not have access to food and shelter. The appeal came in a written statement Monday signed by the heads of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, International Organization for Migration, UN Children's Fund, World Food Programme, World Health Organization, UN Refugee Agency, and UN Population Fund.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, on Wednesday expressed shock at reports that as many as hundreds of civilians were killed and many others injured in air strikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on a crowded market in Tora village, Sudan's North Darfur State, on Monday. There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties, ranging from several dozen to hundreds.
Senior United Nations officials on Monday expressed alarm at the continued escalation of conflict in Myanmar, amid reports of the direct targeting of civilians in aerial bombardments and the abduction and forced recruitment of children by the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs). Meanwhile, 18.6 million women, children and men in Myanmar are in need of humanitarian assistance - the fifth-largest number in the world.
