Videos

Port-au-Prince – Amidst ongoing violence in Haiti, the United Nations World Food Programme has rapidly expanded its food assistance, reaching more than half a million people since the start of the current crisis in March this year.

As we approach the 6-month mark in the conflict, famine is ever closer in the north of Gaza. Malnutrition among children is spreading at record pace, and one of three children below the age of two is now acutely malnourished or “wasted”. Some 70 percent of the population in the North is facing catastrophic hunger

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has managed to bring desperately needed food and nutrition supplies into Darfur, the first WFP assistance to reach the war-wracked region in months. Yet, the UN food agency warns that unless the people of Sudan receive a constant flow of aid via all possible humanitarian corridors the country’s hunger catastrophe will only worsen.

Famine is imminent in the north of Gaza. Malnutrition among children is proceeding at record pace, and one of three children below the age of two is now acutely malnourished or “wasted”. Parents are not eating for days at time so that their children can. Some 70 percent of the population in the North is facing catastrophic hunger. The choice is clear: surge or starvation. We need Israel to allow more routes into Gaza, including from the north, and use of Ashdod port. We need humanitarian staff and supplies to move freely, and the people of Gaza to access assistance safely. As famine closes in, an Israeli land offensive in southern Gaza would make our task even harder. We need a humanitarian ceasefire.

DRC’s conflict-driven hunger crisis is worsening as violence in the eastern province’s surges, forcing families to flee once again. More and more people are arriving at overcrowded camps where there is a lack of food, sanitation and shelter.

WFP is deeply concerned about an expanded Israeli military offensive in Rafah, where over a million people are crammed into a tiny area. As most aid is entering Gaza through Rafah and being distributed there, the offensive would further complicate relief efforts.

At least 25 million people are struggling with soaring rates of hunger and malnutrition as the crisis in Sudan sends shockwaves around the region, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warns today, with thousands of families being displaced and forced across borders into Chad and South Sudan each week.

The West Bank is grappling with escalating violence, arrests, and movement restrictions that impact hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are losing their work permits and are unable to leave the West Bank, while commercial activity inside is limited. This puts the economy – and the humanitarian situation - at risk of further deterioration.

Everyone in Gaza is hungry and each day is a desperate search for food. People often go the entire day and night without eating. Adults go hungry so children can eat. According to the latest data, the risk of famine increases each day as the conflict limits the delivery of life saving humanitarian assistance to people in need.

More than one in four households in Gaza currently face extreme hunger, and there is a risk of famine unless access to adequate food, clean water, health and sanitation services is restored, according to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released today.

The fighting in Gaza has resumed and more people have been forced to leave their homes, inflicting further suffering on a population already facing a risk of famine and disease. The aid that crossed during the seven-day pause was still not enough to reach everyone in need. And for at least three days after the pause, no food supplies have entered Gaza.

Climate change continues to wreak havoc in Eastern Africa, a region with minimal emissions yet which bears the brunt of the global climate emergency. Five consecutive failed rainy seasons from 2020 to 2022 resulted in a devasting drought that pushed millions into food insecurity and malnutrition as livelihoods were destroyed at a massive scale – damage that will take families and communities many years to recover.

The World Food Programme delivered desperately needed food to more than 120,000 people in Gaza during the initial pause in fighting but reiterated that the supplies it was able to provide were woefully inadequate to address the level of hunger seen by staff in the UN shelters and communities.

Thousands of Afghans living in Pakistan are crossing back into Afghanistan after the Government of Pakistan’s announcement that all undocumented Afghans must leave the country by 1 November. WFP is providing emergency food assistance at border crossings with plans to assist more than a million vulnerable returnees in the coming months.

Chad is host to more than one million refugees - one of the largest and fastest-growing refugee populations in Africa. The recent conflict in neighbouring Sudan has driven hundreds of thousands more across the border. Despite humanitarian needs spiralling, resources available to respond are dwindling leaving aid groups with few options.

With only ten percent of necessary food supplies entering Gaza since the beginning of the conflict, people now face a massive food gap and widespread hunger as nearly the entire population is in desperate need of food assistance.

WFP Executive Director, Cindy McCain issued an urgent plea from the Rafah border crossing for safe, expanded humanitarian access to Gaza as humanitarian needs skyrocket and critical food supplies reach dangerously low levels.

Since the explosion of gang violence began in July 2021 some 200,000 Haitians have been displaced by violence across the country. Since mid-August, a surge in fighting has forced another 40,000 people to flee their homes in the capital Port au Prince.

The catastrophic conditions facing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza risk getting worse still, due to severe fuel shortages which threaten to bring food and other humanitarian operations to a standstill

The arrival of the first trucks in Gaza is a first step towards a food lifeline for the hundreds of thousands of people facing desperate conditions. But much more access and assistance is urgently needed, and the flow of supplies needs to be scaled up radically.

WFP welcomed today’s opening of the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which enabled a first convoy of trucks to bring in urgently needed food, water and other supplies provided by the Egyptian Red Crescent and the United Nations for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been struggling amid desperate conditions.

Food supplies are being stockpiled in the Egyptian city of Al Arish and close to the Gaza border, to be dispatched as soon as border access is granted. The World Food Programme (WFP) needs unimpeded access, and safe passage for desperately needed humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Seven earthquakes with magnitudes reaching 6.3 and multiple aftershocks have struck Herat Province in Western Afghanistan within eight days. Dozens of villages are affected, many of them entirely flattened with at least 1,400 people killed and more than 1,800 injured, according to official figures. The majority of victims are women and children.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an emergency operation to provide critical food assistance to over 800,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank who are facing dire circumstances, lacking access to food, water, and essential supplies.

A hunger emergency is looming on the border between South Sudan and Sudan as families fleeing fighting in Sudan continue to cross the border every day. New data gathered by WFP shows that among the nearly 300,000 people who have arrived in South Sudan in the last five months, one in five children are malnourished and 90 percent of families say they are going multiple days without eating.