WFP

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), together with the Government of Bangladesh, on Monday launched their Joint Response Plan (JRP) for one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The plan calls for US$934.5 million from the international community to fund protection, shelter, and basic needs for refugees in camps, and to support opportunities for self-reliance.

While the world's farmers produce more than enough food to feed the planet's 8 billion people, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said "hunger and malnutrition are a fact of life" for billions, as 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.  In a message ahead of Wednesday's World Food Day, Guterres said 733 million people worldwide lack food because of "conflict, marginalization, climate change, poverty and economic downturns.

In what they call an "unprecedented emergency," United Nations agencies are warning that humanitarian operations throughout the Gaza Strip will cease within hours or days unless Israel reopens border crossings and allows critical fuel supplies into the Palestinian territory. Virtually no aid has entered Gaza in the past five days, and essentials such as fuel, food and water are in dangerously short supply.

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.

Interim authorities in Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region are warning of a looming famine due to drought and the enduring effects of the devastating two-year war in the north of the country. In a statement Friday, Getachew Reda, leader of the interim regional authority in Tigray, said more than 91 percent of the population was "at risk of starvation and death" and called on the Ethiopian Federal Government and the international community to help.

Monday marks another grim milestone in the conflict in Sudan. Since the fighting started 100 days ago, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured, and millions displaced as a result of the nightmarish violence that broke out. UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations around the world today called attention to the plight of the people of Sudan and demanded action to end the war and improve the humanitarian response to the crisis.

With the support of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Israel and Lebanon have signed a ceasefire agreement after more than 13 months of conflict. Under the agreement, Hezbollah troops will move north of the Litani River and Israeli troops will withdraw from southern Lebanon. The Israeli cabinet voted on Tuesday to approve the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect at 4am local time on Wednesday.

Some 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, representing one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to a new report released Wednesday by five United Nations specialized agencies. The report warns that the world is significantly off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, by 2030, with alarming numbers of people experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition.

A massive fire broke out Sunday in the middle of a refugee camp occupied by Myanmar Rohingya refugees in southeastern Bangladesh, leaving thousands homeless under the open sky. The number of casualties remains unknown although local officials said they managed to take many people away to safety while some refugees said they had missing family members.

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.

Over 735 million people were facing hunger in the world in 2022, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published Wednesday jointly by five United Nations agencies. The new estimates indicate hunger is no longer on the rise at the global level, but is still far above pre-pandemic levels and far off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of Zero Hunger by 2030.

February 13 marks one week since devastating twin earthquakes struck the Turkish Syrian border region. With the death toll surpassing 36,000 and hundreds of thousands more homeless, the region remains in the grip of a growing humanitarian crisis. Rescue teams in southern Turkey have rescued survivors from the rubble Monday, more than a week after a series of powerful earthquakes struck the region. The rescues came as experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings. 

Fifteen months into Israel's war on Gaza, more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The horror of the situation in Gaza shows no signs of abating as the world looks the other way. Meanwhile, Israeli officials continue to systematically deny the delivery of life-saving aid in flagrant violation of international law.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — the world’s leading authority on acute food security — says that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where access to food and other essential goods and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels. An IPC alert published Tuesday highlights that two out of three famine thresholds have been exceeded in parts of the territory.

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.

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.