We must save as many lives as we can by Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator 3:54pm 17th Jun, 2025   June 2025    By the end of May 2025, nearly 300 million people around the world were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection. In the first months of the year, conflicts and violence intensified in multiple countries—deepening needs and driving many people to the brink of death—while natural disasters wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people.    Multiple crises were characterized by systematic violations of international humanitarian law, including mass atrocities, with catastrophic consequences for civilians.    Forced displacement—primarily driven by conflict—reached its highest ever levels. The number of people forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order rose in 2024, reaching a record 123.2 million people, or one in 67 people globally.    This included 83.4 million people who remained internally displaced within their own country as a consequence of conflicts and natural disasters, a 12 per cent increase compared to 2023.    In 2025, refugees continued to flee crises—particularly Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar and Sudan—and internal displacement rose rapidly.    In the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) , hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were repeatedly forcibly displaced and confined into ever-shrinking spaces. Haiti is seeing record levels of displacement due to violence, with nearly 1.3 million people now internally displaced, a 24 per cent increase since December 2024.    In the DRC, the M23 offensive in the east of the country, beginning in January 2025, displaced over a million people. In Burkina Faso, over 60,000 people were internally displaced in April alone and in Colombia, over 50,000 people were displaced in just two weeks due to the Catatumbo crisis.    With every displacement, urgent shelter needs arise. Shelter is a foundation for survival—without it, people remain exposed to violence, disease, and exploitation. Despite 40 per cent of IDPs globally still residing in displacement sites, the support provided to these locations is minimal.    The global food security crisis escalated dramatically, with 295.3 million people facing high acute food insecurity. Conflict and/or insecurity was responsible for Catastrophic food insecurity (Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) 5) in Haiti, Mali, OPT, South Sudan and Sudan, as well as famine in 10 locations in Sudan and famine-risk across all of Gaza, OPT.    Conflict also caused food insecurity to significantly deteriorate in Myanmar, Nigeria and Sudan, and drove malnutrition crises in Mali, OPT (Gaza), Sudan and Yemen.    Sexual violence was rampant, particularly against women and girls. In the DRC, it was estimated that a child is raped every half hour; in Haiti, there was a tenfold increase in sexual violence against children between 2023 and 2024; in Sudan, the scale and brutality of sexual violence escalated, and around 12.1 million people—nearly one in four, most of them women and girls—are now at risk of gender-based violence.    The horrifying toll of war on children continued to mount, with 50,000 children reportedly killed or injured in Gaza, OPT between October 2023 and May 2025, and April 2025 marking the deadliest month for children in Ukraine in nearly three years. In Colombia, more than 46,000 children and adolescents in the Catatumbo region are facing alarming risks, including fear of forced recruitment into non-State armed groups due to escalating conflict in 2025.    Attacks against health care disrupted vital and life-saving care for millions of people throughout the first months of 2025, with over 500 attacks recorded—over 300 of which involved the use of heavy weapons—across 13 countries and territories.    The use of explosive weapons in urban areas caused devastating harm for civilians and impacted services essential for their survival, including in Myanmar, OPT, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen. It is estimated that some 50 million people suffer the horrific consequences of urban warfare worldwide.    Climate and geological crises: Two major natural disasters occurred in the first half of 2025. On 28 March 2025, two earthquakes struck central Myanmar, killing 3,800 people, injuring 51,000, destroying thousands of homes and disrupting communications, water access and electricity supply. The disaster exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation in the country where, prior to the earthquake, nearly 20 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance.    Meanwhile, in Mozambique, Tropical Cyclone Dikeldi made landfall on 13 January 2025, just a month after Tropical Cyclone Chido on 15 December 2024. The two cyclones impacted 700,000 people and destroyed approximately 150,000 homes, as well as hundreds of schools and health facilities.    The risk of major emergencies continues to rise due to the global climate crisis, with 2024 now confirmed as the warmest year on record, while 2015 to 2024 are all in the ‘Top Ten’. And the future is bleak: there is an 80 per cent chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be hotter than 2024.    Underfunding: millions of people’s lives are hanging in the balance as services, programmes and organizations shut down    At the end of 2024, humanitarian action was already underfunded and under attack. Today, the situation is unimaginably worse: humanitarians are having to dramatically cut assistance and protection for people in crisis as funding plummets, while themselves facing increasing attacks.    In the first five months of 2025, multiple major donors reduced funding, triggering a seismic contraction in global humanitarian action.    The United States of America—which funded 45 per cent of the global humanitarian appeal in 2024—announced a suspension and subsequent termination of many humanitarian contracts, with sudden and widespread consequences around the globe.    This came on top of reductions announced or instituted by other major donors, including Germany and the United Kingdom, and on the back of a reduction in humanitarian aid from 2023 to 2024.    At least 79 million people in crisis will no longer be targeted for assistance as a result and this is likely a significant underestimate.    Cuts in food rations and emergency assistance are jeopardizing the lives and wellbeing of people facing acute food insecurity.    The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that it may reach more than 16 million people less (21 per cent) with emergency food assistance in 2025 compared to the 80 million people assisted in 2024.    Already, prior to 2025, financing for food, cash and emergency agriculture was well below what was required, from Haiti to Mali and South Sudan.    In Bangladesh, one million Rohingya refugees who rely on food assistance will see their monthly food rations halved without additional funding. In Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), one in every three (60 out of 180) community kitchens had to close in just days.    In Sudan, additional funding is urgently needed to procure and distribute seeds, without which, many farmers may miss this critical planting window. In Haiti, which has just entered the Atlantic Hurricane Season and where food insecurity is rampant, WFP, for the first time ever, has no prepositioned food stocks, nor the cash liquidity to mount a swift humanitarian response in the case of a hurricane.    Malnourished children face heightened risk of severe malnutrition and death.    Disruptions to nutrition support and services due to global funding cuts are expected to affect 14 million children, including more than 2.4 million who are already suffering severe acute malnutrition and at imminent risk of death.    In Afghanistan, 298 nutrition sites closed, depriving 80,000 acutely malnourished children, pregnant women, and new mothers of treatment posing a serious risk of increased mortality.    Maternal and infant mortality may rise, as sexual and reproductive healthcare services are cut in countries where risks are already the highest.    Funding cuts have led to facility closures, loss of health workers and disruptions to supply chains for lifesaving supplies and medicines such as treatments for haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria—all leading causes of maternal deaths.    Severe funding cuts are reducing support for midwives in crisis settings, jeopardizing the health and lives of pregnant women and newborns in some of the most fragile places on earth.    Children are losing access to their future, as access to education diminishes. More than 1.8 million children will miss out on learning due to aid cuts impacting just one NGO’s education programmes in over 20 countries.    Lack of shelter is leaving millions of people exposed to the elements and violence. In some of the world’s biggest crises—including Sudan and DRC—distribution of emergency shelters is at risk of being cut. In Chad, Colombia and Uganda, families face protracted displacement with no shelter assistance on the horizon.    Around the world, budget cuts are forcing humanitarian partners to reduce operations, presence and services. At least 12,000 humanitarian staff contracts have been cut and at least 22 organizations have had to completely close their offices in the relevant countries. National NGOs have reported the highest proportion of terminations.    Separately, almost half (47 per cent) of women-led organizations surveyed are expecting to shut down within six months, if current funding levels persist, and almost three-quarters (72 per cent) report having been forced to lay off staff.    Funding cuts have also affected humanitarian programmes for persons with disabilities, with 81 per cent reporting an impact on the delivery of assistance to address basic needs and 95 per cent reporting an impact on work to address barriers faced by persons with disabilities to access humanitarian assistance.    The risk of preventable disease and mortality has risen as health and water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) are curtailed.    In Syria, hospitals serving over 200,000 people in Deir ez-Zor are at risk of closing in May 2025 and over 170 health facilities in the north-west of the country risk running out of funds. In Somalia, over a quarter of one NGO’s health and nutrition facilities will stop services in June 2025, affecting at least 55,000 children.    In the DRC, 100,000 children are projected to miss out on measles vaccination in 2026 alone. In Afghanistan, approximately 420 health facilities have closed, denying three million people access to primary health care.    In Sudan nearly 190,000 refugees and host households in White Nile, Kordofan and parts of Darfur risk losing access to WASH services, heightening the risk of disease outbreaks, malnutrition and protection violations, particularly for women and children.    Funding cuts for women-led organizations have hit gender-based violence prevention and protection efforts hardest. In the DRC, underfunding—combined with an upsurge in violence—means that 250,000 children will miss out on GBV prevention. In Yemen, funding suspensions have already forced 22 safe spaces to close, denying services and support to women and girls.    Services for refugees are being jeopardized. In Rwanda, under the DRC regional refugee plan, cash assistance for food decreased by 50 per cent. In Uganda, vulnerable refugees (82 per cent of the settlement refugee population) have had their food rations reduced to approximately a quarter of the full amount.    In Lebanon, tens of thousands of vulnerable families risk being left without cash assistance to meet their basic needs. In Hungary, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) can no longer enroll any new refugees with severe disabilities into the cash support programme.    As of 10 June 2025, only 12 per cent of funding required under the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview has been received. Without urgent additional support and financial backing, humanitarian partners will be unable to reach even people with the most life-threatening needs.    And yet, this devastating underfunding of humanitarian action comes amid an exponential rise in military expenditure. In 2024, military expenditure reached over $2.7 trillion; more than 100 times the amount galvanized for humanitarian appeals globally ($24.91 billion). This was the steepest year-on-year rise in military expenditure since at least the end of the Cold War, with European military expenditure accounting for the main increase.    June 2025    A hyper-prioritized Global Humanitarian Overview 2025: the cruel math of aid cuts, by Tom Fletcher - United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:    "This is a moment of reckoning. Brutal funding cuts have left us with no other option than to further reduce the number of people we are hoping to save.    Six months after ruthlessly prioritizing those in the direst need, we are left with the cruel math of doing less with less – even as the world around us remains on fire.    Make no mistake: our appeal for less money does not mean that there are less needs. Quite the contrary.    What has changed is that funding for our work has been decimated, even as more lives are shattered by wars and climate-induced disasters, and as our own staff is killed, injured, and detained just for trying to save lives.    What has changed is that more people in positions of power are choosing to finance wars instead of aiding people bearing their brunt; retreating from their obligations under international law instead of upholding them; allowing the worst violations to continue instead of holding perpetrators accountable; repressing women and girls instead of empowering them.    And yet I refuse to believe that humanity is dead. Everywhere I’ve been since taking on this role, I have seen its irrepressible power: In the people who have next to nothing and how they open their doors to those fleeing crises; in the women who have survived atrocities—from Gaza to El Geneina—and how they support their own communities; in the aid providers who, through sheer determination, ingenuity and care, manage to reach people in even the most dangerous and challenging crises.    So, as we launch this hyper-prioritized Global Humanitarian Overview, I am calling on the global community—Governments, businesses, individuals—to meet this moment. Help us deliver for those who need our support the most. Stand up for the laws that protect civilians and protect us as we serve them. Hold those responsible for atrocities to account. Ask yourself whether you did all you could.    This GHO Special Edition reflects our collective response to the most devastating funding cuts that our sector has ever seen. It is a focused, clear-eyed account of what must happen now—where the needs are most urgent, where we can still make the most difference, and where lives are, very literally, on the line.    Reaching this point has not been easy; it has required extremely tough conversations and difficult decisions. And let me be crystal clear: while this document outlines what we must do, right now, to save as many lives as we can with the resources that we have, it does not – in any way – replace our meticulous and painstaking planning for this year. The entirety of our initial Global Humanitarian Overview remains fully valid and should be fully funded. This hyper-prioritized version is the tip of the iceberg, not the whole effort.    What we are launching today is a call to action, not a plea for charity—it’s an appeal for responsibility, solidarity, and a future built on humanity.    Inaction is not inevitable. It is a choice—and one we can refuse to make. The stakes could not be higher".    http://humanitarianaction.info/document/hyper-prioritized-global-humanitarian-overview-2025-cruel-math-aid-cuts http://humanitarianaction.info/    16 June 2025    Critical funding shortfalls are forcing reductions in food rations    A new joint UN report warns that people in five hunger hotspots around the world face extreme hunger and risk of starvation and death in the coming months unless there is urgent humanitarian action and a coordinated international effort to de-escalate conflict, stem displacement, and mount an urgent full-scale aid response.    The latest Hunger Hotspots report shows that Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali are hotspots of highest concern, with communities already facing famine, at risk of famine or confronted with catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity due to intensifying or persisting conflict, economic shocks, and natural hazards. The devastating crises are being exacerbated by growing humanitarian access constraints and critical funding shortfalls.    The Hunger Hotspots report is an early-warning analysis of deteriorating food crises for the next five months. Developed and published with financial support from the European Union through the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC), the latest edition projects a serious deterioration of acute food insecurity in 13 countries and territories – the world’s most critical hunger hotspots in the coming months.    In addition to hotspots of highest concern, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar and Nigeria are now hotspots of very high concern and require urgent attention to save lives and livelihoods. Other hotspots include Burkina Faso, Chad, Somalia, and Syria.    “This report makes it very clear: hunger today is not a distant threat – it is a daily emergency for millions of people,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said. “We must act now, and act together, to save lives and safeguard livelihoods. Protecting people’s farms to ensure they can keep producing food where they are, even in the toughest and harshest conditions, is not just urgent – it is essential.”    “This report is a red alert. We know where hunger is rising and we know who is at risk,” said Cindy McCain, World Food Programme Executive Director. “We have the tools and expertise to respond, swiftly and at scale, to save lives and halt the spread of famine before it’s too late – but additional funding and safe humanitarian access are now critical.    Just as importantly, the international community needs to focus on brokering political solutions to the conflicts and instability that are driving the crises we’re sounding the alarm on today."    In Sudan, Famine was confirmed in 2024. Conditions are expected to persist due to the continuing conflict and ongoing displacement, particularly in the Greater Kordofan and Greater Darfur regions. Displacement is likely to increase further during the outlook period while humanitarian access remains restricted.    The circumstances are driving the country towards the risk of partial economic collapse, with high inflation severely limiting food access. Around 24.6 million people were projected to face Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above) levels of acute food insecurity, including 637,000 people facing Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) through May 2025.    In Palestine, the likelihood of famine in the Gaza Strip is growing as large-scale military operations hinder the ability to deliver vital food and non-food humanitarian assistance. In addition to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip, high food prices coupled with exhausted livelihoods and a commercial blockade will accelerate an economic collapse.    The entire population in Gaza – 2.1 million people – is projected to face Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above) levels of acute food insecurity, with 470,000 projected to face Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) through September 2025.    South Sudan faces compounding threats from political tensions, the risk of flooding, and economic challenges. Approximately 7.7 million people – or 57 percent of the population – are projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between April and July 2025, with 63,000 people projected to face Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity. An IPC update released after the report’s finalization indicated Risk of Famine in two areas of the country and confirmed the bleak outlook.    In Haiti, record levels of gang violence and insecurity are displacing communities and crippling aid access. Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) already facing Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) levels of acute food insecurity in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area by June 2025.    In Mali, high grain prices and ongoing conflict are eroding the coping capacities of the most vulnerable households, particularly in conflict-affected areas. In Myanmar, the impact of the recent major earthquake is likely to worsen the already dire food insecurity situation in the country, driven by escalating conflict, widespread displacement, severe access restrictions and high food prices. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been reintroduced to the hotspot list due to intensifying conflict.    A call for global solidarity    In multiple hotspots, aid delivery is significantly hampered by restricted humanitarian access due to insecurity, bureaucratic impediments, or physical isolation. At the same time, critical funding shortfalls are forcing reductions in food rations, limiting the reach of life-saving nutrition and agricultural interventions.    The Hunger Hotspots report highlights the importance of continued investments in humanitarian action. Interventions save lives, reduce food gaps, and protect livelihoods at a significantly lower cost than delayed humanitarian action.    http://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164441 http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/sites/default/files/resource/file/HungerHotspots2025_CD5684EN.pdf http://www.wfp.org/news/fao-and-wfp-early-warning-report-reveals-worsening-hunger-13-hotspots-five-immediate-risk http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/hunger-hotspots    * FEWS NET food security update May 2025: Acute food insecurity is expected to increase between June and September: http://tinyurl.com/3xtab3yy    * The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports global military spending of over $2700 billion in 2024, U.S.$997 billion. The Forbes 2024 Billionaires list reports 2,781 people holding combined assets of $14.2 trillion. Visit the related web page
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