WFP

With half a million people one step away from famine in north-eastern Nigeria, UN humanitarian agencies have sounded the alarm bell on Wednesday at a briefing in Geneva asking for urgently needed funding to provide life-saving operations. 700,000 children under the age of five years are at risk of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, a number which has doubled compared to last year.

Leading United Nations agencies and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have jointly issued a warning about a rapidly intensifying hunger emergency in Somalia, which is pushing 6 million people — nearly a third of the population — towards critical levels of acute hunger. The country now has one of the world's worst malnutrition crises, affecting around 1.9 million children, of whom 493,000 face severe acute malnutrition (SAM).

The European Union (EU) says it is gravely concerned by the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, DRC), which recently led to an immediate system-wide scale-up by the United Nations of humanitarian operations in the eastern part of the country. In a statement Friday by its High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, the EU also expressed outrage at the levels of violence and atrocities that continue to be perpetrated by armed groups with impunity against civilians. 

Battles raged in the streets of Khartoum for a fifth day Wednesday after the country's two warring factions failed to honor a cease-fire. Loud explosions and gunfire were heard in the Sudanese capital, and witnesses reported heavy fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the center of the city.

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.

Members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya community living as refugees in Bangladesh are again voicing opposition to efforts to repatriate many of them. They say that the Myanmar government has not met their demands over citizenship rights and that it is not safe for them to go back to Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Those concerns come amid a plan for their repatriation to Myanmar in the coming weeks.

United Nations officials say talks between Sudan's warring parties continued in Geneva on Friday, focusing on regional peace efforts as well as an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resolution of the more than 14-month conflict through dialogue. The development comes as fighting rages in many parts of the country, which has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with some 25 million people - half of Sudan's population - in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

A senior official from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Tuesday warned that "an unimaginable humanitarian crisis" was unfolding in Sudan, with millions of people being forcibly displaced from their homes by an increasingly vicious conflict. Since the conflict started more than six months ago, over 6.2 million people have become displaced inside Sudan or have sought refuge in neighboring countries. 

The United Nations says there are growing concerns for the protection of civilians in Myanmar as armed conflict continues to spread across the country. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), landmine contamination, explosive hazards, fighting with heavy weapons, and aerial bombardment continue to drive people from their homes in several states, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation.

Despite signs of political progress, Haiti remains gripped by insecurity, with international support seen as critical to enabling long-delayed elections, the United Nations Security Council was told Thursday. As the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) begins its phased deployment and the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission prepares to leave at the end of April, officials warned that whether recent gains can hold depends on how security conditions evolve.

The United Nations, its humanitarian partners, and the Bangladeshi government are calling for renewed international support to address the urgent needs of Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar camps and on Bhasan Char in Bangladesh, as well as those of local host communities. Wednesday’s appeal comes amid growing global instability and rising humanitarian pressures, which have forced difficult prioritization and threatened essential services for vulnerable people.

According to the latest findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), there have been notable improvements in food security and nutrition in the Gaza Strip following the ceasefire in October and a significant reduction in conflict. Yet, the situation remains critical. In August, the IPC Famine Review Committee (FRC) had confirmed a human-made famine in the Gaza governorate, where over half a million people were experiencing famine.

Three leading Christian organizations — the World Council of Churches (WCC), Caritas Internationalis (the Catholic Church's humanitarian arm), and World Vision International (WVI) — warned in an open letter on Monday that the current wave of conflicts and economic instability is pushing millions into severe hunger, even though global food production is at record levels. The faith-based organizations assert that “hunger amid abundance is a moral failure”.

The Bundestag, the national parliament of Germany, has approved additional spending of one billion euros to tackle the global food crisis in the coming year. After more than 17 hours of deliberations, the Budget Committee of the Bundestag adopted the federal budget for 2023 early Friday morning.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that a humanitarian operation was launched on Tuesday to deliver assistance to previously inaccessible areas of Afghanistan's eastern Nuristan province. Ongoing armed conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan has left thousands in these communities without access to basic supplies and essential services for more than seven weeks. Meanwhile, cross-border mortar shelling continues.

A new analysis of the state of global hunger finds that escalating conflict, climate change and economic shocks are driving more people into acute hunger, threatening gains made in recent years toward the goal of ending hunger by 2030. The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2024, released Wednesday, finds that 281.6 million people in 59 crisis countries and territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023 - a global increase of 24 million from the previous year.