News releases

DAKAR – The Regional United Nations (UN) agencies are concerned that millions of people are at severe risk unless humanitarian aid and increased funding support, is provided in Niger and Central Sahel.

PANAMA CITY – As Tropical Storm Franklin approaches Hispaniola Island - bringing with it heavy rains, flood risk, storm surges and strong winds - United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) emergency response teams in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti are prepositioning food stocks and preparing emergency assistance for the most vulnerable communities in the path of the storm.

This is a summary of what was said by Peter Musoko, Country Director for WFP in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Geneva – The ongoing political instability and armed conflicts in the DRC have devastated food production and distribution systems. Displacement of people, destruction of infrastructure, and disruption of agricultural activities have led to widespread food shortages and increased vulnerability to hunger, with 1.5 million people in emergency levels of food insecurity.

Unprecedented hunger and malnutrition threaten lives across the country

PORT SUDAN – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered emergency food assistance to more than one million people in Sudan in the six weeks since operations resumed on 3 May. WFP briefly paused operations when the conflict broke out but has since rapidly scaled up food distributions, delivering life-saving assistance to people in 14 of 18 States as fighting continues and the humanitarian situation deteriorates.

DAMASCUS – An unprecedented funding crisis in Syria is forcing the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to cut assistance to 2.5 million of the 5.5 million people who rely on the agency for their basic food needs. The announcement comes as the European Union gears up to host the seventh Brussels Conference on “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region” on Wednesday.

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is accelerating efforts to roll out enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people across Ethiopia. This follows a joint statement by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and USAID announcing their commitment to addressing deeply concerning revelations of food aid diversion.

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) strongly condemns the looting of one of the agency’s logistics hubs in south-central Sudan. The attack on WFP’s warehouses in El Obeid puts food assistance for 4.4 million conflict-affected people at risk.

UN agencies warn that record hunger levels in the DRC require livelihood support and long-term investment. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) call for more support to improve livelihoods while responding to emergencies.

May 29, 2023: Accra/Johannesburg/Kinshasa – An estimated 6.7 million people are experiencing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in North and South Kivu and Ituri, representing a 10 percent increase from last year.

SITTWE – WFP and its local partners have reached over 230,000 people with life-saving food assistance in the wake of Cyclone Mocha, the most destructive storm to strike Myanmar in over a decade. Within 72 hours after landfall on 14 May, WFP began food distributions in Sittwe, Rakhine’s state capital, which suffered considerable damage. The cyclone has flattened houses, destroyed livelihoods, and disrupted telecommunications, power, and supply chains.

Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali and the Sudan have been elevated to the highest alert level to join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

PORT SUDAN – Distributions of United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) food assistance began on Saturday for thousands of people who have been trapped in Sudan’s capital Khartoum since fighting broke out six weeks ago. The distributions come in the last days of the seven-day ceasefire agreed by both conflict parties, which is set to expire on Monday evening.

CAIRO – The Government of Japan has extended its support to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Egypt, contributing US$500,000 to provide critical food assistance to people fleeing the conflict in Sudan.

NAIROBI – Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are trapped in a hunger emergency as the region lurches from crisis to crisis: the longest drought in recorded history has given way to rains and flash flooding, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Food and energy prices remain stubbornly high and the impact of the conflict in Sudan reverberates around the region.

BAMAKO – As violence, population displacements and climate shocks continue to exacerbate food insecurity and malnutrition in Mali, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) requires urgent funding to ramp up emergency food and nutritional assistance to 3.8 million women, men and children in conflict-affected regions in central, northern, and south-eastern Mali.

PORT SUDAN/ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is rapidly scaling up its emergency operations in Sudan, every day reaching thousands more people whose lives have been upended by the ongoing fighting. WFP is ramping up to assist 4.9 million vulnerable people in Sudan and thousands more who have fled to neighbouring countries.

ROME – The G7’s strong commitment to global food security in 2022 must be maintained in 2023 as new crises in Sudan, Haiti and the Sahel push more people into hunger, the UN World Food Programme said today, just days before G7 leaders were due to meet in Japan.

ASWAN – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), launched today an emergency cash assistance programme to support vulnerable people fleeing the conflict in Sudan. WFP’s pre-established cash delivery platform will also be made available to sister UN agencies to enable them to quickly extend their assistance to vulnerable people arriving in Egypt from Sudan.

BANGKOK - The World Food Programme (WFP) is closely monitoring Cyclone Mocha, which is expected to make landfall this Sunday in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Working with partners, WFP is gearing up for a large-scale emergency response, putting in place contingency plans, and prepositioning food and relief supplies, vehicles, and emergency equipment. Heavy rainfall is forecast, with the possible risk of floods and landslides, which could impact hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in areas likely to be in the cyclone’s trajectory.

N’DJAMENA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) urgently requires US$162.4 million to support the Government of Chad in assisting 2.3 million people in urgent need of food assistance, including newly arrived refugees from Sudan as well as the 600,000 refugees already in Chad, communities hosting displaced people, internally displaced people, and severely food insecure people in Chad during the June-August lean season.

ROME/PORT SUDAN – The UN World Food Programme warned today that an additional 2 - 2.5 million people in Sudan are expected to slip into hunger in the coming months as a result of the ongoing violence in the country. This would take acute food insecurity in Sudan to record levels, with more than 19 million people affected, two fifths of the population.

NAIROBI - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) today signed an agreement to address the devastating impacts of the climate crisis, environmental degradation and biodiversity and ecosystem loss on the food and water security of millions of people around the world.

KINSHASA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a US$ 2.8 million contribution from the Government of Switzerland to support emergency food and nutrition assistance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

ROME – The World Food Programme (WFP) is deeply concerned by the recent reports of significant diversion of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region. WFP takes this issue extremely seriously and will not tolerate any interference in its distribution of critical food aid to the most vulnerable women, men and children.

ROME – As the crisis in Sudan pushes millions into hunger, the World Food Programme (WFP) is immediately lifting the temporary suspension of operations put in place after the tragic deaths of our three team members on 15 April. Distribution of food is expected to commence in the states of Gedaref, Gezira, Kassala and White Nile in the coming days to provide the life-saving assistance that many so desperately need right now.