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displacement
Famine Spreading Amid 'Unprecedented' Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan: UN
"Hunger and starvation are spreading because of the decisions being made each day to continue to prosecute this war, irrespective of the civilian cost," said one U.N. expert.
Jan 06, 2025
Multiple U.N. leaders addressing the United Nations Security Council on Monday urged action to tackle the spiraling humanitarian crisis unfolding in war-torn Sudan, which has contributed to roughly half of the country facing acute food insecurity.
Sudan has been racked by violence since fighting erupted between the between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)—the nation's official military—and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023. The civil war has also led to widespread hunger in the country.
Edem Wosornu, director of operations and advocacy at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, toldthe Security Council that "Sudan remains in the grip of a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions."
"More than 11.5 million people are now estimated to be internally displaced, of whom nearly 8.8 million people have been uprooted since April 2023," she said.
Wosornu spoke about the findings of the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report from late December, which stated that there was famine—or an IPC phase 5—in in Zamzam, Abu Shouk, and Al Salam camps, as well as in the Western Nuba Mountains, affecting both residents and internally displaced people between October and November 2024. The report noted that between December 2024 and May 2025, famine is projected to continue in the same areas and expand in the North Darfur localities of Um Kadadah, Melit, El Fasher, At Tawisha, and Al Lait.
"The main drivers of famine risk remain the armed conflict and forced displacement," according to the report.
The famine declaration for Zamzam camp, which houses hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in North Darfur, came in August.
On the eve of the IPC's December report, the Sudanese government suspended cooperation with a global hunger monitor.
Wosornu in her remarks also lamented the death of three World Food Program staff members, who were killed when the agency's field office in Yabus was hit by an "aerial bombardment," according to the United Nations.
"Hunger and starvation are spreading because of the decisions being made each day to continue to prosecute this war, irrespective of the civilian cost," she added.
Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, also provided a Monday briefing to the Security Council, saying that "the latest reports on food security are the worst in the country's history."
"Let me remind council members that over the last 15 years, only four famines have been confirmed: Somalia in 2011; South Sudan in 2017 and 2020; and now Sudan in 2024," she said.
Bechdol highlighted a number of actions that the Security Council should aid, including using "political leverage to end hostilities and to bring relief to the people of the Sudan."
She also called on the body to support "immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access" and delivery of "multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance," saying that "while scaling up food, water, and cash assistance is vital, this alone cannot address the full scope of the hunger crisis."
Wosornu added that the Security Council should help "press the [warring] parties to comply with international humanitarian law," and mobilize international funding to address the "unprecedented scale of the needs in Sudan."
This comes a week after U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and two of her colleagues pressed President Joe Biden to do more to help the people of Sudan, including requesting an increase in U.S. humanitarian aid, specifically that a portion of that funding go toward supporting Sudanese organizations and entities that are aiding civilians on the ground.
This comes a week after U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and two of her colleagues pressed President Joe Biden to do more to help the people of Sudan, including requesting an increase in U.S. humanitarian aid, specifically that a portion of that funding go toward supporting Sudanese organizations and entities that are aiding civilians on the ground.
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Over 1 Million Flee 'Total Destruction' in Lebanon, With Cease-Fire Demanded
"The shelter system is set to collapse if there is no peace on the horizon."
Oct 04, 2024
About 1.2 million people have been displaced as Israeli forces have surged into southern Lebanon and undertaken a bombing campaign in multiple parts of the country, including in and around Beirut, leaving many people out in the street, with shelters mostly full as of Friday.
Nasser Yassen, Lebanon's environment minister, announced the displacement figure Wednesday, saying that about 160,000 had landed in shelters. Roughly half the displacements occurred over just a few days earlier in the week—both before and after Israel ordered people in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate—according to Save the Children.
Most of the country's 900 shelters are full, Rula Amin of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday at a press conference in Geneva, adding that some hotels and nightclubs were acting as makeshift shelters.
Mathieu Luciano of the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said the situation was dire.
"Roads are jammed with traffic, people are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach," he said, according to Reuters.
Bachir Ayoub, Oxfam's Lebanon country director, said that the shelter system in Lebanon, whose entire population is roughly 5.5 million, couldn't handle the high numbers of refugees.
"The shelter system is set to collapse if there is no peace on the horizon," Ayoub said in a statement.
"There must be an end to this violence," he added. "All parties must stop fighting. We need safe space to get people the aid they need."
#Lebanon: People uprooted by Israeli airstrikes, including in central Beirut, describe being forced to flee “total destruction”, amid fresh reports of Hezbollah projectile attacks into Israelhttps://t.co/0mM7MowD0B
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) October 3, 2024
Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party, have traded airstrikes and rocket fire for the last year, and the conflict has seen a major escalation in the last two weeks. Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week, reportedly using 2,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs manufactured in the U.S.; the attack flattened residential buildings and killed at least six others, in addition to Nasrallah.
This was one of series of airstrikes Israel has made on Beirut and its southern outskirts—a campaign that continued Friday, with the possible use of more "bunker buster" bombs.
The death toll over the last two weeks in Lebanon is over 2,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Israel launched a ground incursion in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, leading to close range fighting with Hezbollah and mass displacement of the residents there.
"People are coming to us traumatized," said Gheith Bittar, executive director of SHiFT Social Innovation Hub, a Beirut-based group that partners with Oxfam. "Most of them have lost their houses and relatives. Some of them were scared because of the scale of bombardment as they were fleeing, and many others because of their fear of the unknown coming to a new city."
The most vulnerable members of Lebanese society are at the most risk, experts say. For example, many women from low-income countries are domestic workers in Lebanon and have been abandoned by their employers; some don't seek shelter or aid for fear of being deported.
"They don't have papers... and as a result, they are reluctant to seek humanitarian assistance because they fear that they may be arrested and they may be deported," Luciano said.
The conflict has also led to the mass displacement of children, as Common Dreamsreported last week.
More than 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled to Syria in the last 10 days, according toAl Jazeera. The group likely includes Syrians who had previously fled war in their home country.
However, the main route to Syria became far more difficult to take on Friday: Israel bombed it, leaving a huge crater.
Lebanon's hospitals have been overwhelmed and at least 28 on-duty Lebanese medics were killed in just a 24-hour period this week, according to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
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UNRWA Says There Is 'Nowhere to Go' as Israel Orders Evacuation of Gaza Safe Zones
"People remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale," the U.N. agency wrote on social media.
Aug 16, 2024
Following a series of evacuation orders this week, Israeli forces issued another on Friday for areas in central and southern Gaza, including "safe zones," leaving Palestinian families gripped with fear and with "nowhere to go," according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Israel's Arabic spokesperson announced on social media that people in six neighborhood blocks in various towns, several of which were part of a proclaimed humanitarian zone, must "immediately move," leading to a scramble of evacuations in those areas.
"Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go," UNRWA wrote on social media. "People remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale."
#Gaza: New evacuation orders have been issued by Israeli authorities, even inside the so-called “humanitarian zone”.
Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go. People remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale. pic.twitter.com/Myi6z6Ix87
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 16, 2024
Friday's evacuation orders were for areas in eastern Deir el-Balah, al-Qarara, al-Mawasi, al-Jalaa, Hamad City, and Nasser, Al Jazeerareported.
An Israeli military strike on al-Mawasi, previously a humanitarian zone though long the target of Israeli strikes, killed four Palestinians including three children, the news outlet reported on Friday.
The Israeli army said Hamas had used the areas to fire mortar and rocket attacks, and explained that it had issued warning flyers and text message alerts to reduce the impact on the Palestinian civilian population, according toReuters.
Bombings and evacuations have continued this week—at least 80 Palestinians were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter on Sunday—even as peace talks proceeded in Doha, Qatar. A two-day session of talks finished Friday, with the United States, Egypt, and Qatar saying progress was made and they hoped to seal a deal between Israel and Hamas next week. Hamas didn't directly participate in this week's talks because the militant Palestinian group said Israel had added new demands to a proposal it had already agreed to in principle.
The death toll of Palestinians during the 10-month war, based on figures from Gaza's health ministry, reached 40,000 this week—what the U.N. called a "dark milestone."
"Most of the dead are women and children," U.N. rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement. "This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war."
"On average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months," he added, saying the "scale of the Israeli military's destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship [is] deeply shocking."
Türk said that both Israel and armed Palestinian groups including Hamas had committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. The armed Palestinian groups killed more than 1,100 Israelis in a shocking and horrifying massacre in southern Israel on October 7 in which they also took some 250 hostages.
Israel's sustained assault on Gaza over the last 10 months has not only killed a disproportionate number of children but also displaced most of those who've survived—and separated many from their families.
A report released Friday by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) documents the scale of the separation crisis and its psychological toll on unaccompanied children. UNICEF estimates that roughly 17,000 Gazan children are unaccompanied, but the IRC warns that the real figure may be much higher.
Unaccompanied youth are at risk of labor exploitation, starvation, and mental health problems that can plague them for the rest of their lives. Gazan children, shocked by the war, are "clinging to others during loud sounds, wetting the bed, having nightmares, and are wanting to sleep under the bed to feel secure," the report says.
The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that Israeli strikes were leaving "children without parents and parents without children," and has previously reported that the war has wiped out entire Palestinian extended families.
Israeli violence against Palestinians has not been restricted to Gaza. Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank town of Jit on Thursday night, setting fire to cars and houses, killing one Palestinian man and seriously injuring another. Jack Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he was "appalled" by the attack and the perpetrators should be held accountable, but Israeli human rights group B'Tselem responded on social media by saying that the Israeli state and its leadership should be held accountable.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday reported that it had recorded about 1,250 settler attacks on Palestinians since October 7. The settlements are illegal under international law, according to the International Court of Justice.
The push for a peace deal is aimed not just at ending the carnage in Gaza and defusing West Bank tensions but also preventing a wider war in the Middle East. Israel is bracing for retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah after it conducted assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran and Beirut in late July.
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