The DONARE FAQs section offers curated responses to frequently asked questions about humanitarian action, including topics such as humanitarian aid, humanitarian crises, humanitarian actors, humanitarian funding, and international humanitarian law. Here, you will find a complete list of all the questions addressed.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) urgently calls for more humanitarian support in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where armed conflict, blockades, and funding cuts drive a dramatic rise in hunger and malnutrition. WFP reports that 57 percent of families in central Rakhine are unable to afford basic food needs, up from 33 percent in December 2024.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that the ongoing conflict and spreading disease outbreaks are having a devastating impact on children in Sudan. Separately, independent human rights investigators report that the civil war in Sudan is intensifying, marked by an increased use of heavy weaponry in populated areas and a sharp rise in sexual and gender-based violence. Countless civilians caught in the conflict face devastating consequences.
Collective punishment refers to the imposition of penalties, sanctions, or punitive measures on a group of people – such as families, communities, ethnic groups, populations, or nations - as a whole, rather than on individuals who may be responsible for a specific offense. This practice is considered a violation of principles of justice and human rights, as criminal responsibility can be attributed only to individuals. The concept behind collective punishment is to hold an entire group accountable for the actions of a few individuals within that group.
Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. These crimes are defined in international law and are considered among the most serious of international crimes. Crimes against humanity are defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which lists several acts that constitute these crimes “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population.”
Within weeks, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created one of the largest humanitarian disasters globally. As of November 2025, more than 53,000 civilians were recorded killed or wounded as a result of the war. Violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law occurring in the course of the ongoing armed attack are widespread. As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches the four-year mark, people in Ukraine continue to be killed, wounded and deeply traumatized by the violence. Civilian infrastructure on which they depend continues to be destroyed or damaged.
While there is no legally binding definition, ethnic cleansing can be described as the systematic and deliberate process of removing or displacing a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group from a specific geographic area. This can be done through a variety of means, including
In its latest update on Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that humanitarian supplies are nearing total depletion since Israel imposed a complete blockade on commercial goods and humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip on March 2. More than 2 million people remain trapped, bombed and starving inside the territory, while Israeli attacks on civilians, aid workers, UN personnel, hospitals and ambulances continue with impunity.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL), also known as the laws of war or the law of armed conflict, is a set of rules and principles that aim to limit the effects of armed conflict and protect individuals who are not or are no longer taking part in the hostilities. It seeks to balance military necessity with humanitarian considerations, minimizing unnecessary suffering and safeguarding the rights of civilians and other non-combatants.
Genocide is a term used to describe violent crimes committed against a group with the intent to destroy the existence of the group, in whole or in part. The United Nations Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, provides a legal definition of genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Established in 2002 under the multilateral Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and international court based in The Hague, the Netherlands. The ICC, which has 125 state parties, the majority of the world's states, is independent but is supported by the United Nations General Assembly.
Humanitarian access refers to the ability of humanitarian organizations to reach populations affected by crises and provide them with essential aid and services, such as food, water, shelter, healthcare, and protection. It also encompasses the unimpeded access of these populations to relief goods and emergency services. Access requires the physical capacity to enter crisis zones and operate within them freely, without hindrance from governments, armed groups, or other parties.
A humanitarian catastrophe is a humanitarian crisis (or emergency) where widespread loss of life, threat to life, and human suffering on an immense scale occur - often over a short period of time. Such events result typically from violence involving armed actors (like states and non-state armed groups), leading to hunger, displacement, disease, and lack of access to essential resources like safe water and shelter. Natural disasters can also cause humanitarian catastrophes such as famine.
Despite the tactical pauses that Israel introduced last week to allow some safe passage for humanitarian convoys, the amount of aid that has entered the Gaza Strip remains vastly insufficient for its starving population. United Nations aid trucks continue to face impediments on their way to deliver aid, while UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continue to face obstructions that prevent them from bringing in and distributing aid at scale.
WASH stands for water, sanitation, and hygiene. The acronym WASH is widely used in the context of humanitarian aid and development work by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies. Access to safe water and sanitation is a human right.
In a new report released Wednesday, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) paints a bleak picture of the human rights situation in the country. With Russia’s invasion well into its 20th month, Ukraine’s civilians continue to pay a horrendous price with nearly 10,000 dead and tens of thousands injured, the report said, noting that over the past six months, the war has claimed, on average, six civilian lives a day.
As Israel’s latest military assault escalates, the situation in the Gaza Strip, where a man-made famine has been confirmed, continues to deteriorate, with more than two million civilians facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Earlier this week, Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians to evacuate Gaza City.
A new study by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warns that millions of Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) face an uncertain future as Ukraine enters its third year of war with Russia and its battle for survival risks becoming a protracted crisis. Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is seeking to clarify the fate of 23,000 persons whose families have no news of them, either because they have been captured, killed, or because they lost contact after fleeing their homes.
The overall humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is marked by a protracted political crisis, characterized by 58 years of Israeli military occupation. In October 2023, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip deteriorated drastically following the start of a war by the Israeli military due to atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups. For more than two years, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is raging in Gaza, where civilians are dying from violence, lack of medical treatment, famine, disease, starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia. On October 10, 2025, a ceasefire between Israel and the armed group Hamas went into effect.
The United Kingdom offers a diverse landscape of humanitarian organizations, and is home to numerous charities that work on emergency response, poverty, health, education, human rights, and a wide range of other issues. DONARE has selected 25 well-known and influential British humanitarian organizations that respond to humanitarian crises around the world. These charities have a substantial impact on humanitarian efforts worldwide.
