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humanitarian crisis
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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Thousands Feared Dead in Impoverished French Territory of Mayotte After Cyclone Chido
"You feel like you are in the aftermath of a nuclear war," said one resident. "I saw an entire neighborhood disappear."
Dec 16, 2024
Undocumented migrants living in informal settlements in the French territory of Mayotte were among those whose lives and livelihoods were most devastated by Cyclone Chido, a tropical cyclone that slammed into the impoverished group of islands in the Indian Ocean over the weekend.
Authorities reported a death toll of at least 20 on Monday, but the territory's prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, told a local news station that the widespread devastation indicated there were likely "some several hundred dead."
"Maybe we'll get close to a thousand," said Bieuville. "Even thousands... given the violence of this event."
Mayotte, which includes two densely populated main islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre, as well as smaller islands with few residents, is home to about 300,000 people.
The territory is one of the European Union's poorest, with three-quarters of residents living below the poverty line, but roughly 100,000 people have come to Mayotte from the nearby African island nations of Madagascar and Comoros in recent decades, seeking better economic conditions.
Many of those people live in informal neighborhoods and shacks across the islands that were hardest hit by Chido, with aerial footage showing collections of houses "reduced to rubble," according toCNN.
"What we are experiencing is a tragedy, you feel like you are in the aftermath of a nuclear war," Mohamed Ishmael, a resident of the capital city, Mamoudzou, told Reuters. "I saw an entire neighborhood disappear."
Bruno Garcia, owner of a hotel in Mamoudzou, echoed Ishmael's comments, telling French CNN affiliate BFMTV: "It's as if an atomic bomb fell on Mayotte."
"The situation is catastrophic, apocalyptic," said Garcia. "We lost everything. The entire hotel is completely destroyed."
Residents of the migrant settlements in recent years have faced crackdowns from French police who have been tasked with rounding up people for deportation and dismantling shacks.
The aggressive response to migration reportedly led some families to stay in their homes rather than evacuate, for fear of being apprehended by police.
Now, some of those families' homes have been razed entirely or stripped of their roofs and "engulfed by mud and sheet metal," according to Estelle Youssouffa, who represents Mayotte in France's National Assembly.
People in Mayotte's most vulnerable neighborhoods are now without food or safe drinking water as hundreds of rescuers from France and the nearby French territory of Reunion struggle to reach victims amid widespread power outages.
"It's the hunger that worries me most. There are people who have had nothing to eat or drink" since Saturday, French Sen. Salama Ramia, who represents Mayotte, told the BBC.
The Washington Postreported that Cyclone Chido became increasingly powerful and intense—falling just short of becoming a Category 5 hurricane with winds over 155 miles per hour—because of unusually warm water in the Indian Ocean. The ocean temperature ranged from 81-86°F along Chido's path. Tropical cyclones typically form when ocean temperatures rise above 80°F.
"The intensity of tropical cyclones in the Southwest Indian Ocean has been increasing, [and] this is consistent with what scientists expect in a changing climate—warmer oceans fuel more powerful storms," Liz Stephens, a professor of climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Post.
People living on islands like Mayotte are especially vulnerable to climate disasters both because there's little shielding them from powerful storms and because their economic conditions leave them with few options to flee to safety as a cyclone approaches.
"Even though the path of Cyclone Chido was well forecast several days ahead, communities on small islands like Mayotte don't have the option to evacuate," Stephens said. "There's nowhere to go."
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Humanitarian Groups Dread 2025 Aid Shortfall as Trump Term Looms
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist," said one advocate, "it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter."
Dec 04, 2024
As the United Nations humanitarian agency and its partner organizations launched the annual Global Humanitarian overview on Wednesday to appeal for aid ahead of 2025, officials shared sobering numbers: 305 million people in dire need of assistance, 190 million people the agencies believe they can help next year if funding demands are met, and $47 billion that's needed to help the people facing the greatest threats.
Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said governments, particularly those in wealthy countries like the United States, face "a choice" as the world bears witness to starvation, increasingly frequent climate disasters, and other suffering in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
"We can respond to these numbers with generosity, with compassion, with genuine solidarity for those in the most dire need on the planet—or we can carry on," said Fletcher at a news briefing. "We can choose to leave them alone to face these crises. We can choose to let them down."
Fletcher and other humanitarian leaders noted that as of last month, just 43% of the $50 billion funding appeal made for 2024 had been met.
Food assistance in Syria has been cut by 80% as a result of the large funding gap, while protection services in Myanmar and water and sanitation aid in Yemen have also been reduced.
Fletcher said that with another major funding shortfall expected in 2025, OCHA and its partners are expecting to be forced to make "ruthless" decisions to direct aid to those most in need—likely leaving out 115 million people.
Fears that funding needs will be far from met in 2025 are arising partially from the election last month of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who pursued significant cuts during his first term to agencies including the U.N. Population Fund, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"America is very much on our minds at the moment, we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does and less ideologically supportive of this humanitarian effort that we've laid out in this report," said Fletcher. "But it's our job to frame the arguments in the right way to land and not to give up. And so I'll head to Washington. I'll spend a lot of time in Washington, I imagine, over the next few months, engaging with the new administration, making the case to them, just as I'll spend a lot of time in other capitals where people might be skeptical about the work that we are doing."
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland, who led OCHA for three years, toldAl Jazeera that U.S. funding under the Trump administration is "a tremendous question mark."
"Should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs," said Egeland.
The U.S. is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, contributing $10 billion last year—but its donations pale in comparison to its military spending, which was budgeted at more than $841 billion in 2024, and the earnings of its top corporations.
As NRC noted, Facebook parent company Meta earned $47.4 billion—about the same amount humanitarian agencies are requesting this year—before income taxes in 2023.
Without naming billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—a Trump ally and megadonor who's expected to have a role in his new administration—Camilla Waszink, director of partnership and policy at NRC, called out the widening gap between the world's richest people and those in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist and trillions of U.S. dollars are used annually on global military expenditure, it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter and prevent children from dying of hunger," said Waszink. "There is an urgent need for a revamp of global solidarity. Existing donor countries must ensure assistance keeps pace with needs and inflation, and emerging economies should compete to become among the most generous donors in the same way they compete to host expensive international sports events."
"It is devastating to know that millions of people in need will not receive necessary assistance next year because of the growing lack of funding for the humanitarian response. With a record number of conflicts ongoing, donors are cutting aid budgets that displaced and conflict-affected people rely on to survive," she added. "Conflicts and a blatant disregard for protection of civilians are driving massive humanitarian needs. It is essential that donors provide funding, but they must also invest in ending conflicts, bringing violations to a halt and preventing new needs from developing."
Fletcher noted that in addition to conflicts like Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the civil war in Sudan, the climate crisis is a major driver of growing humanitarian needs.
"2024 will be the hottest year on record," said Fletcher. "Presumably 2025 will then be the hottest year on record. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires affecting millions. We're on the brink of surpassing the 1.5°C in warming, and that will hit hardest in the countries that have actually contributed least to climate change. It wipes out food systems. It wipes out livelihoods, it forces communities to move from their homes and land. Drought has caused 65% of agricultural economic damage over the last 15 years, worsening food insecurity."
In conflict zones and in regions affected by the climate emergency, said Fletcher, "it's our mission to do more."
"My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline," he said. "They can see what is needed, but we need these resources. That's our call to action. And we also need the world to do more. Those with power to do more—to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference."
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