This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

$150 million released to help underfunded humanitarian emergencies

Thirteen underfunded humanitarian crises are to receive $150 million in emergency support from the UN, it’s been announced.

The cash from the Central Emergency Response Fund (or CERF) comes as the UN predicted that this year, 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance, the highest number in decades.

Ongoing operations receiving the most funds include those in Syria, at $25 million, providing a “lifeline” to extremely vulnerable people there.

From the UN aid coordinating office, OCHA, here’s spokesperson Jens Laerke:

“There’s a continuous problem with underfunding, so this money will go to projects that will be decided by the humanitarian country team and the humanitarian coordinator in Syria where they can plug critical gaps in the response going forward.”

The remaining aid operations that are set to receive emergency funding are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger; with fresh funds also for Haiti, Lebanon, Madagascar, Kenya, Angola and Honduras.

Tigray: aid operations ‘are about to grind to a halt’, warns WFP

Aid operations in northern Ethiopia are on the verge of grinding to a halt amid ongoing fighting and bloodshed that is making humanitarian access impossible, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, said on Friday.

Escalating clashes in Tigray have meant that no WFP aid convoys have been able to reach the regional capital Mekelle since mid-December, it said in an update.

More worrying still, stocks of nutritionally fortified food to treat malnourished women and children have now been exhausted and the last of WFP’s cereals, pulses and oil will be distributed this week.

Speaking in Geneva, here’s WFP spokesperson, Tomson Phiri:

“Because of fighting, food distributions are at an all-time low. WFP aid workers on the ground tell me that warehouses are completely empty, which in my experience that’s a very dire sign, it almost never happens.”

The development follows air strikes in Tigray which have killed at least 108 civilians since the year began, allegedly by the Ethiopian air force.

In Geneva, the UN rights office, OHCHR condemned reported recent air attacks on camps for displaced people, a flour mill and a training college, noting that the deadliest strike so far had been on Dedebit camp on Monday 7 January, which has left at least 59 people dead.

Ending Sahel crisis must be focus of international community: UNHCR

To Africa’s Sahel region, finally, where armed groups carried out more than 800 deadly attacks last year, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has said, in an appeal for help to end years of violent insecurity there.

In an alert, on Friday, UNHCR said that conflict in the Central Sahel has forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes in the last decade.

Most refugees in the Sahel today fled from Mali, UNHCR said, where conflict began in January 2012.

A surge in violent attacks last year displaced nearly 500,000 people alone, although figures for December are still pending.

UNHCR spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov said that the result of this is that the agency’s aid teams and partners face mounting challenges to deliver emergency relief, including road attacks, ambushes, and carjacking.

As the situation deteriorates in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, Mr. Cheshirkov said that every effort must be made to bring peace, stability, and development to the region.

To mount an effective response in 2022 in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, UNHCR requires $307 million.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.