War

Numerous countries around the world have been hit by torrential rains, flash floods, river flooding, and other large-scale flooding events that have submerged vast areas of land, caused devastation, affected millions of people, displaced hundreds of thousands, and claimed hundreds of lives. Although the rainy season is still underway in many regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the magnitude of the ongoing natural disasters points to the effects of the climate crisis and the La Niña phenomenon.

Children from displaced families are dying of starvation in parts of Yemen, according to the United Nations, as extreme hunger and malnutrition take hold. Over 17 million people in Yemen are acutely food insecure, a figure expected to surpass 18 million by February 2026 amid a critical crisis in humanitarian funding.

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.

Failure to provide timely humanitarian aid and protection to Syrian earthquake victims has cost the lives of many civilians caught in this catastrophic disaster, according to a United Nations-appointed commission of inquiry on Syria. In a statement Monday, the three-member independent body accuses the Syrian government and other parties to that country's conflict, the international community, and the UN of the abandonment of millions of Syrian civilians in dire need.

The United Nations says warring parties in Yemen have agreed on a significant step to end the devastating civil war, following a series of meetings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Muscat, Oman mediated by the UN. In a statement Saturday, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, welcomed the parties’ commitment to a set of measures, which includes implementing a nationwide ceasefire, improving living conditions in Yemen, and the resumption of an inclusive political process under UN auspices.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, on Wednesday expressed shock at reports that as many as hundreds of civilians were killed and many others injured in air strikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on a crowded market in Tora village, Sudan's North Darfur State, on Monday. There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties, ranging from several dozen to hundreds.

Hundreds of civilians have been reportedly killed following large-scale United States and Israeli missile and air strikes across Iran, according to Iranian state media and humanitarian sources. On Saturday evening, Iran’s Red Crescent reported to state media that more than 200 civilians were killed and more than 700 were injured during the first day of strikes across 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Violence in Myanmar is spiraling as the military junta increases its attacks on monasteries, schools, and camps sheltering people uprooted by the civil war, a top independent human rights investigator warned Wednesday. This warning comes as the number of people in Myanmar in need of humanitarian assistance has risen to an unprecedented 22 million, following four years of fierce civil war and devastating earthquakes three months ago.

Widespread attacks on civilians continue across South Sudan, driven primarily by subnational armed violence involving community-based militias and civil defense groups, according to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Its latest quarterly report, released on Wednesday, comes as the country faces an underfunded humanitarian response, an influx of new arrivals due to the war in neighboring Sudan, as well as looming flooding and an economic crisis.

At the end of a visit to Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, on Monday called on the international community to take bold and decisive action to help Syrians rebuild their war-torn country and support displaced Syrians returning home. More than 500,000 refugees have returned to Syria since September, including 200,000 after the fall of the Assad government in early December.

The United Nations relief chief, Martin Griffiths, warns that nearly nine months of war have tipped Sudan into a downward spiral that only grows more ruinous by the day. In a statement issued Thursday, Griffiths said that in 2024, the international community – particularly those with influence on the parties to the conflict in Sudan – must take decisive and immediate action to stop the fighting and safeguard humanitarian operations to help millions of civilians.

As the war in Yemen entered its tenth year this week, millions of Yemenis continue to suffer the long-term consequences of the devastating ongoing conflict. Nine years after Saudi Arabia launched its military offensive, Yemen remains one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. More than half of the country's population - an estimated 18.2 million people - are in need of humanitarian assistance this year. Among them are 9.8 million children.

Describing the situation in the Gaza Strip as "appalling and apocalyptic", the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General on Monday urged world leaders to act decisively to alleviate suffering and prevent further devastation in the enclave. Speaking at a ministerial conference in Cairo on humanitarian aid for Gaza, she was joined by other senior UN officials in calling for an immediate end to the humanitarian catastrophe that has plagued the territory for nearly 14 months.

Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise in Ethiopia as ongoing conflict, regional instability, displacement, drought and economic shocks leave millions without enough food, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. WFP warned that its life-saving response has been severely hampered by critical funding shortfalls, with 3.6 million of the most vulnerable people at imminent risk of losing food assistance.

A United Nations-backed food security report has warned that the entire Gaza Strip is classified in emergency levels of hunger, and that the threat of famine persists as aid dwindles and winter approaches. As of October, some 1.84 million people across the Gaza Strip are classified in crisis levels (IPC Phase 3) or worse, including some 133,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) and 664,000 in emergency levels (IPC Phase 4).

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 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.