UNHCR

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 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that civilians, including humanitarian workers, are facing serious threats to their safety as hostilities escalate in northern Syria and spread to other parts of the country. The fighting also continues to cause severe damage to critical infrastructure and disrupt aid operations, while Syria is already facing one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

The United Nations humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, and the Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, on Thursday welcomed the news that the crucial Adre crossing between eastern Chad and the western region of Darfur in Sudan will remain open for the movement of humanitarian personnel and life-saving supplies. Since its reopening eight months ago, the Adre crossing has been a vital lifeline for millions of people in dire need in the region.

The United Nations' top humanitarian official issued a blunt warning on Monday about a mounting "age of indifference" as funding for essential aid programs continues to dwindle. Addressing journalists at the UN headquarters in New York, Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, highlighted a critical shortfall in resources and the escalating threats facing humanitarian workers worldwide.

The heads of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) warned in a rare joint statement on Tuesday that escalating conflict is driving record levels of displacement, hunger and gender-based violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) said that without urgent international action, the situation threatens to push the DRC to the brink of catastrophe.

The abrupt suspension of foreign aid by the United States has fueled a global humanitarian catastrophe, according to UN human rights experts. The extreme cuts in funding are expected to cost millions of lives worldwide. On Thursday, the experts said the situation was made worse by the US administration’s failure to publish a mandatory review of contracts and disbursements by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Independent investigators appointed by the United Nations have accused Sudan's warring parties of driving the country into a humanitarian abyss by flagrantly disregarding basic human rights and international humanitarian law. The three-member International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan presented its first oral update to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says the number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has more than doubled in five months. According to a UNICEF statement Thursday, around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July, as climate change, conflict, global inflation and grain shortages devastate the region.

The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) reports that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have carried out brutal attacks on the besieged city of El Fasher and the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sudan’s North Darfur State which hosts some 25,000 children, women, and men. These attacks resulted in the killing of at least 89 civilians over a ten-day period until Wednesday.

Conflict and violence have pushed the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) around the world to a record high of 75.9 million, with nearly half living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The report, released on Tuesday, found that conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) accounted for nearly two-thirds of new displacements due to violence.

Time is running out for millions of people in Sudan who are "at imminent risk of famine" because the country's warring parties are preventing aid from reaching them, major aid agencies warn. Nineteen global humanitarian organizations, including twelve United Nations agencies, urged Sudan's warring parties on Friday to stop blocking food aid from reaching millions of people suffering from acute hunger.

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake has shocked wide parts of Turkey and Syria early Monday, destroying thousands of buildings and killing more than 2,700 people, with hundreds more believed to be trapped under the rubble. The epicenter of the pre-dawn earthquake was near Gaziantep, close to the Turkish-Syrian border. It was followed by a separate magnitude 7.5 earthquake about 100 kilometers north of the first one in the early afternoon.

The United Nations, the Government of Cameroon and the humanitarian community have jointly launched the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the country, where 3.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance this year. The Plan, released this week, targets 2.3 million vulnerable women, girls, men and boys in the most affected areas and requires US$371.4 million.

United Nations agencies warn that hunger in conflict-ridden Sudan has reached record levels, with more than 20.3 million people across the country, over 42 percent of the population, facing acute hunger, including 6.3 million who are “one step away from famine.” According to the latest IPC food assessment in Sudan, the number of people projected to be food insecure between July and September has nearly doubled from the last analysis, conducted in May 2022.

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.