War

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued one of its most urgent warnings to date, stating that the Earth’s climate system is more imbalanced now than at any other time in the history of modern observation. WMO's latest State of the Global Climate report, released on Monday, paints a stark picture of a planet that is accumulating heat at an unprecedented rate due to record levels of greenhouse gases, resulting in increasingly severe consequences.

As the death toll in Myanmar continues to rise following Friday's historic earthquake, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the country said on Tuesday that the scale and scope of the earthquake's impact is vast, spanning multiple states and regions, particularly the central part of Myanmar. The death toll is expected to rise to more than 3,000, according to the country's military junta, while thousands are reportedly injured and hundreds missing.

The international rights group Amnesty International (AI) says newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh need urgent access to food, shelter and health care after enduring the worst violence against their communities since Myanmar's military-led campaign in 2017. Bangladesh must stop sending Rohingya back to Myanmar, where they face attacks by the Arakan Army (AA) or indiscriminate military airstrikes by the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF), the rights group urges.

In the latest setback for Myanmar's military rulers, resistance forces have seized near-total control of a key border town on the main land trade route between Myanmar and Thailand. Amid a worsening humanitarian crisis, conflict has escalated in several states and regions of the country. Fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF), ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and People's Defense Forces (PDFs) continues to exacerbate the humanitarian situation.

Israel's air and ground operations in the Gaza Strip since October 7 last year have killed more than 27,300 people, about 70 percent of them women and children, injured more than 66,000 and left at least 8,000 missing, most of them presumed dead. At the same time, the needs of more than two million people trapped in Gaza, already facing a humanitarian catastrophe, are at risk of becoming even more dire following the decision by 18 donor countries to suspend financial contributions to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

August 25 marks the seventh anniversary of the start of a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek refuge in Bangladesh. UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday expressed grave concern about the sharply deteriorating situation across Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine, where hundreds of civilians - mostly Rohingya - have reportedly been killed while trying to flee ongoing fighting.

A full-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah could lead to a slaughter and cripple life-saving humanitarian work throughout the Gaza Strip, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday. The UN, governments and aid agencies have been appealing to Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation in Gaza's southernmost city, where more than 1.5 million people are at risk, is looming on the immediate horizon.

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.

A new United Nations report warns that acute food insecurity is worsening in 16 hunger hotspots across the globe, which threatens to push millions more people into famine or risk of famine, with time running out to avert widespread starvation. The report identifies armed conflict and violence, economic collapse, climate extremes, and an unprecedented decline in humanitarian funding as the main drivers of acute hunger.

Emergency aid efforts for tens of thousands of refugees who have fled to Armenia from the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in Azerbaijan are gathering speed as the exodus from the disputed region shows few signs of letting up. Since Azerbaijan launched an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, some 100,000 refugees have arrived in Armenia, mainly in the country’s southern Syunik region.

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.

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.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called on Wednesday for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to ease the “epic human suffering” in the Gaza Strip. The call comes a day after hundreds of civilians were reported killed in an airstrike on a hospital in Gaza. The Gaza de facto authorities blamed Israel for the attack, while the Israeli military claimed a rocket misfired by a Palestinian armed group was responsible.

The ongoing ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is allowing United Nations agencies to provide life-saving food to more desperate people, but the UN warns that greater access is necessary to prevent famine from spreading. Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, the World Food Programme (WFP) has brought in over 6,700 metric tons of food — enough to feed nearly half a million people for two weeks. However, this falls far short of the daily target of around 2,000 tons.

Since the resumption of hostilities in Gaza on December 1, hundreds of Palestinians – mostly children and women - have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in addition to the 15,500 already killed since October 7. Meanwhile, Israeli military operations have expanded into southern Gaza, forcing tens of thousands into increasingly compressed spaces, desperate to find food, water, shelter and safety.