Humanitarian Aid

© UNICEF

Yemen aid lifeline near ‘breaking point’: UN food agency

26 May 2020
Asia Pacific

Humanitarian aid projects to war-torn Yemen are reaching breaking point, and some $870 million is needed to continue giving life-saving assistance to millions of vulnerable people for the next six months, the World Food Programme (WFP), warned on Tuesday.

OCHA/David Swanson

Syria: UN relief chief appeals for renewal of lifesaving cross-border aid operation

19 May 2020
Middle East

The UN’s top aid official has urged the Security Council to renew a mechanism that provides lifesaving assistance to millions of desperate people in northwest Syria, through cross-border deliveries from Turkey.

OCHA/Giles Clarke

'Alarming’ military build-up underway in Libya, as COVID-19 heightens insecurity

19 May 2020
Africa

The civil war in Libya is in danger of intensifying as foreign intervention grows and the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic adds to a deepening sense of insecurity, the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) told the Security Council on Tuesday.

© UNICEF

Philippines typhoon recovery, complicated by coronavirus concerns

15 May 2020
Asia Pacific

As Typhoon Vongfong slammed the Philippines on Thursday, tens of thousands of people fled to cramped shelters, raising fears that without proper safety precautions in place, evacuation centres could become a hotbed of coronavirus infection, the UN emergency humanitarian relief agency (OCHA) said on Friday.

World Bank/Dominic Chavez

‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ looms in Haiti, threatening years of progress as COVID-19 takes hold, ECOSOC group says

8 May 2020
Americas

The COVID-19 outbreak could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti, endangering many years of hard-won progress in the Caribbean nation, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) said on Friday.

Photo: IRIN/Hannah McNeish

As pandemic encroaches on Abyei, tensions rise over disputed territory straddling Sudan, South Sudan

28 April 2020
Africa

Sudan’s efforts to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, are delaying the deployment of fresh United Nations police units in Abyei and the border regions between Sudan and South Sudan, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Tuesday

FAO/IFAD/WFP/Michael Tewelde

As famines of ‘biblical proportion’ loom, Security Council urged to ‘act fast’

21 April 2020

The world is not only facing “a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe”, the UN food relief agency chief told the Security Council on Tuesday via video link.

UN Photo/Michael Ali

Assistance ramped up to DR Congo’s South Kivu as floods kill dozens

21 April 2020

Aid is being rushed to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where deadly flooding has swept away people and homes and affected tens of thousands more, including many displaced by violence, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday

©UNICEF/Abdul Sami Malik

UN agencies pledge scaled-up efforts to protect uprooted children as pandemic upends lives

20 April 2020

Two UN agency chiefs are pledging to accelerate work to expand refugee children’s access to protection, education, clean water and sanitation, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the globe.  

IOM

Migrants among most vulnerable, as IOM ramps up coronavirus response worldwide

15 April 2020
Global

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has expanded the scope of its Global Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP), to include far-reaching interventions that aim to mitigate the dire health and socio-economic impacts of the pandemic, the agency said on Wednesday.