Refugees

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the air strike in the Sudanese city of Omdurman on Saturday, which reportedly killed at least 22 people, and left dozens injured. Guterres “remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of a full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region”, according to his spokesman.

Today marks six months since the tragic earthquakes of February 6 in Turkey and Northwest Syria caused nearly 60,000 deaths, thousands of injuries, and massive damage to infrastructure.  As the humanitarian situation across the earthquake affected region remains dire, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is calling for urgent support to affected communities still reeling from the monumental impacts of the disaster.

A hunger emergency is looming on the border between South Sudan and Sudan as families fleeing fighting in Sudan continue to cross the border every day, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday. New data shows that among the nearly 300,000 people who have arrived in South Sudan in the last five months, one in five children are malnourished and 90 percent of families say they are going multiple days without eating.

Leading international humanitarian organizations on Friday have expressed shock and deep concern for civilians in the Gaza Strip after Israel ordered the entire population - more than 1.1 million people - to leave the northern part of Gaza as airstrikes continue and the humanitarian crisis worsens.  Fearing catastrophic consequences, they warn that neither the demand to leave nor the total siege of Gaza imposed by Israel is compatible with international humanitarian law (IHL). 

In a joint appeal Wednesday, the heads of UN humanitarian agencies and global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) urged world leaders to help prevent a further deterioration of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children. They also called on Israel to fulfill its legal obligation under international humanitarian and human rights law to provide food and medical supplies and facilitate relief efforts.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, with civilian casualties mounting due to the ongoing conflict and a growing number of people in need of protection. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar's Acting President, General Min Aung Hlaing, for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya people committed in 2017.

The humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) has released its annual Emergency Watchlist Wednesday, highlighting the 20 countries most at risk of deteriorating humanitarian crises in 2023.  This year, Somalia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan top the Watchlist, as East Africa faces the worst drought in decades and economic turmoil continues to compound needs in Afghanistan. 

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 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan for Mali was launched this week in Bamako, the capital of the country. The United Nations, along with humanitarian partner organizations, will need over US$700 million to assist more than 4.1 million people across the Sahel country in 2024, UN officials announced on Thursday. An estimated 7.1 million people in Mali require humanitarian assistance this year, among them are some 3.8 million children.

August 25 marks the seventh anniversary of the start of a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek refuge in Bangladesh. UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday expressed grave concern about the sharply deteriorating situation across Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine, where hundreds of civilians - mostly Rohingya - have reportedly been killed while trying to flee ongoing fighting.

The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine says there is a growing body of evidence of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine. In its oral update, which was delivered to the UN Human Rights Council Monday, the commission presented a picture of widespread violations and abuse against the civilian population and of wanton, large-scale destruction of essential infrastructure.

Death, injury and permanent family separation are among the traumatic events that have upended the lives of Ukraine's children in the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country, according to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) released on Friday, as a high-level independent inquiry into the invasion also delivered its latest mandated report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on Wednesday.

The United Nations warns that the lack of humanitarian funding is endangering the lives of millions of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo). Many aid agencies have been forced to scale back their operations, which has disrupted critical services for those in desperate need. The UN humanitarian office is calling on the international community to take urgent action to address these severe funding gaps and "stave off a humanitarian tragedy."

According to the United Nations, large numbers of children are dying every month from malnutrition, measles and diarrhea, and other preventable diseases in Sudan, where armed conflict has displaced more than 5.3 million people from their homes. Between May 15 and September 14, at least 1,200 children under the age of five died from a deadly combination of a suspected measles outbreak and high malnutrition in nine camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sudan's White Nile state alone.

One year after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon — with the support of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement — came into effect, communities across Lebanon continue to endure near-daily attacks and live in constant fear. The fragile truce, which was intended to stop months of intense fighting, has been repeatedly violated by Israeli forces. They have killed and injured civilians, leaving the population vulnerable and hindering reconstruction efforts.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned Wednesday that an additional 2 - 2.5 million people in Sudan are expected to slip into hunger in the coming months as a result of the ongoing violence in the country. This would take acute food insecurity in Sudan to record levels, with more than 19 million people affected, two fifths of the population. 

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and water, began entering the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday through the Egypt-controlled Rafah Crossing. Television pictures showed trucks moving into the border crossing area from the Egyptian side. According to local authorities, only about 20 trucks will enter the territory on Saturday, bringing a limited amount of aid. Meanwhile, catastrophic conditions in Gaza continue for its more than 2 million inhabitants as heavy Israeli bombardments, from the air, sea and land, continue almost uninterrupted.

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 bodies of at least 87 ethnic Masalit and others allegedly killed last month by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militia in Sudan’s West Darfur state have been buried in a mass grave outside the capital El-Geneina, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said Thursday. Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called on the RSF leadership immediately and unequivocally to condemn and stop the killing of people, and to end violence and hate speech against people on the basis of their ethnicity.