The UN Security Council has voted Tuesday on the extension of the mandate allowing aid to flow from Turkey to 4.1 million Syrians living in opposition-held areas of the country’s northwest. Life-saving assistance is at risk after the Council failed to adopt either of two competing resolutions to extend cross-border aid delivery.
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.
Nearly 580,000 people, including 300,000 children, are internally displaced across Haiti, a 60 percent increase since March, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN agency says the rise is due to the deterioration of the security situation in the metropolitan area of Port-Au-Prince, the country's capital, particularly between the end of February and April. Haiti is now the country with the largest number of displacements globally due to crime-related violence.
The United Nations and its humanitarian partners have urged solidarity with drought-affected people in Southern Africa and called on the international community to help scale up a timely emergency response to drought in the region, which includes the already crisis-hit countries of Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique. More than 61 million people in the region have been affected by drought and other extreme weather conditions caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon and exacerbated by the climate crisis.
As Sudan has entered its tenth month of conflict, United Nations agencies launched a US$4.1 billion appeal Wednesday to provide urgent aid for 14.7 million people inside Sudan and 2.7 million refugees and host communities in five neighboring countries. Due to the war, half of Sudan’s population – some 25 million people – needs humanitarian assistance and protection. More than 1.6 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that, as of Sunday, at least 93,000 people have been displaced due to escalating hostilities in Syria’s Suweida Governorate, both within Suweida and towards the neighboring governorates of Dara and Rural Damascus. Credible reports detail widespread atrocities perpetrated by different actors in the governorate.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is warning that the humanitarian crisis in Haiti continues to worsen, largely due to ongoing violence. According to an OCHA update on Friday, more than 700,000 people are displaced in the country, more than half of whom are children, with the latest violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince, displacing an additional 12,000 people in recent weeks.
The Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, Violette Kakyomya, warned on Monday that the country is facing multiples humanitarian crises and called for urgent support. The conflict in Sudan is having a strong impact on neighboring Chad, with nearly 490,000 Sudanese refugees – mostly women and children – having crossed the border into the eastern part of the Sahel country to seek safety. In total, there are currently one million refugees living in Chad.
An international non-governmental organization (NGO) warned Monday that a large-scale plague of locusts is ravaging northern Afghanistan and could destroy 1.2 million metric tons of wheat, almost one-quarter of the country's annual harvest. The locust outbreak comes as funding shortfalls have cut off food aid for 8 million people in Afghanistan in the past two months.
The United Nations and Ethiopia’s Federal Government - in a joint statement Thursday - have called for urgent funding, to respond to food insecurity across northern regions as an estimated 4 million people in Tigray, Afar, Amhara, and parts of the Oromia, Southern and Southwest regions are affected by devastating drought. While the situation in many of these areas is already alarming, there is still an opportunity to avert a serious humanitarian catastrophe, the UN and the Government stressed.
The United Nations Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region has told the UN Security Council Wednesday that the fragile ceasefire between the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and the Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) rebels in North Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) seems to be holding. Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the security situation in neighboring Ituri Province remains extremely concerning due to ongoing attacks against civilians.
The number of Rohingya taking risky boat trips across the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to flee mounting hunger and hopelessness in the refugee camps of Bangladesh this year has topped last year’s numbers and could keep rising, rights groups and aid agencies say. A growing number of desperate Rohingya refugees continues to arrive in Indonesia in overcrowded vessels, as conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh continue to worsen, where food rations have been significantly cut.
Since the last attack on El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur State at the end of October, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that tens of thousands of refugees and returnees have crossed into neighboring Chad. The Saharan nation is currently hosting approximately 903,000 Sudanese refugees who escaped the conflict that began in Sudan in April 2023.
Half of families in Sri Lanka are forced to reduce the amount they feed their children, according to a survey by the humanitarian organization Save the Children International, as the country’s economic downturn spirals further into a full-blown hunger crisis nearly a year after the government defaulted on its debt. The non-governmental organization (NGO) said today the government and international community must act now to prevent the country’s children from becoming a lost generation.
The international humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Friday expressed grave concern about the intensifying crisis in Mozambique, which has compounded an already dire humanitarian situation. In a statement, NRC said it has had to suspend much of its relief operations as movement in the field remains too dangerous.
Severe acute food insecurity has increased massively since the start of the war in Sudan, leaving more than half of the country hungry. The Food Security and Livelihoods Cluster (FSLC) said in an advocacy note released on Monday that urgent action, resources and funding are needed to prevent further deterioration and escalation of needs.
With the humanitarian situation in Lebanon worsening by the day, health authorities report that at least 1,116 people have been killed and over 3,000 injured in Israeli attacks since March 2. Meanwhile, displacement continues to surge, with over 1.2 million people in Lebanon – around a fifth of the population – having been forced to flee their homes.
On 6 February two devastating earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude took place in Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş Province, but more than a month after the disaster hit, needs remain immense, while funding has been slow. The Turkey Earthquake Appeal of $1 billion is currently only 10.4 per cent funded with $104.3 million received. The Syria Earthquake Flash Appeal has received $218 million, or 55 per cent, of the nearly $400 million needed.
The United Nations is sounding the alarm over the deepening humanitarian crisis in Syria, with officials warning that a severe lack of funding threatens to undermine fragile progress and exacerbate the suffering of millions. On Wednesday, UN officials briefing the UN Security Council also highlighted the urgent need for increased international support for the country's political transition, including sanctions relief and political engagement.
Three months after the horrific earthquakes of February 6 in Turkey and Northwest Syria, resulting in over 60,000 deaths, thousands of injuries, and massive damage to infrastructure, the humanitarian needs across the earthquake affected region remain acute, warns the nongovernmental organization (NGO) CARE International. In a statement Tuesday, CARE said it remains committed to continue responding to increasing humanitarian needs in a fragile context.
