Crises are intensifying in multiple countries, driving rising humanitarian needs by United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs   June 2026   In the first five months of 2026, crises grew and intensified in multiple countries, driving rising humanitarian needs. By the end of May 2026, over 252 million people were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection.   Situations of violence, including conflict—which remains the main driver of humanitarian need globally—escalated, with civilians and civilian infrastructure under direct attack, international humanitarian law repeatedly defied and people forcibly displaced from their homes.   Despite humanitarians’ best efforts, underfunding in 2026 will leave millions of people without essential assistance, while attacks harming aid workers and assets prevent civilians from accessing the assistance and protection they need to survive. These cuts and attacks are not isolated disruptions; they represent the rupturing of a lifeline for people in crisis.   For women and girls, the cost of inaction is particularly acute. It means giving birth without skilled care, surviving violence without access to support services, withdrawing daughters from school, losing access to reproductive healthcare, and facing heightened risks of exploitation, abuse and child marriage.   It also means the erosion of community-based networks and women-led organizations that often provide the last remaining lifeline when formal systems falter.   Funding cuts have forced humanitarians to make excruciating decisions regarding prioritization, cutting a lifeline for tens of millions of people in need. Based on collective needs analysis and intense discussions by country teams, assistance in 2026 is focused on those facing the most severe needs.   However, while necessary, this leaves tens of millions of people without any hope of support.   In Somalia, for example, alarming food insecurity has been compounded by declining humanitarian assistance: only 17 percent of people in need received humanitarian food security support in January 2026 while 125 treatment sites for severe acute malnutrition and 360 sites offering treatment for moderate acute malnutrition have been closed due to under-funding.   The consequences are already visible across crises, in lives lost, services reduced, and protection weakened:   Resourcing constraints have weakened healthcare systems that detect dangerous pathogens, prepare countries for and prevent outbreaks, and guide vaccine decisions. In South Sudan, more than 1.35 million people in Jonglei State lost access to health services due to service disruptions.   Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) are causing disease and despair in multiple countries. In Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory, collapsed sanitation systems, overflowing sewage, extreme overcrowding, and widespread rodent and insect infestations are exposing civilians to disease, suffering and untenable living conditions amid soaring temperatures.   Funding gaps are forcing millions of people to survive in unsafe, degrading, and increasingly dangerous living conditions. In the Horn of Africa the upcoming rainy season is increasing concerns about aging, temporary shelters located in areas exposed to strong winds, flooding, and poor site conditions. Chad, hosting over 927,000 Sudanese refugees, is struggling to relocate families into sites where services are already severely overstretched.   Protection and education systems are collapsing in multiple contexts due to lack of resources. In Somalia, 86 per cent of Gender-based violence support facilities have shut down. In Chad, severe funding shortfalls are forcing the closure of Women and Girls Safe Spaces, leaving survivors of gender-based violence without clinical care or safe entry points.   In Colombia, local organisations have been forced to scale back drastically. Between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of Education in Emergencies programmes have been reduced or completely suspended, directly impacting the provision of essential elements of education responses in crisis-hit regions.   At the same time, an erosion of protection, including flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, are exposing humanitarian and healthcare workers to greater danger and severely hampering efforts to provide assistance and care.   There has been a collapse of protection for aid workers. In 2025, at least 326 humanitarians were recorded as killed across 21 countries (an average of almost one each day), bringing the total number of humanitarians killed in three years to over 1,010.   Of those over 1,000 deaths, many were in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in the DRC. Member States’ efforts to investigate and bring perpetrators to justice when death and injury result from apparent violations remain grossly inadequate. This pervasive impunity undermines the protection of aid workers across crises.   Access constraints severely hampered humanitarian response in multiple countries. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, aid delivery remained limited by crossing restrictions, denied or delayed movement approvals, fuel shortages, and disruptions to supply chains.   In Somalia, fighting was the primary cause of access restrictions in the first quarter, including hostilities, inter-clan clashes, political and election-related tensions that hindered humanitarian delivery by restricting the movement of personnel and supplies amid prepositioning for the drought response.   Attacks harming healthcare personnel and facilities have become a defining feature of conflicts, despite clear obligations under international humanitarian law and the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 2286, which was adopted in May 2016 to advance the protection of medical care in armed conflict.   From 28 February to 4 May, an average of 5 attacks per day on health care were reported in 2026. In Ukraine, more than 3,000 attacks were recorded on the health-care system in 1,534 days of war, from primary health care centres to maternity hospitals, and from ambulance teams to pharmaceutical warehouses.   In Sudan, attacks against hospitals, clinics, ambulances, patients and health workers since April 2023 have killed more than 2,000 civilians. In Lebanon, almost 190 attacks on healthcare were verified, killing 128 healthcare workers and injured 332 others, were recorded in just three months in 2026. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, attacks on healthcare facilities have deprived more than 55,000 people of medical care, displacing thousands and interrupting ongoing response efforts.   For millions of people, the consequences of global inaction are neither abstract nor in the future; they are already here, and they are immediate and they are life-threatening.   Conflict between States is at its highest level since World War II.   In the Middle East, over 7,000 people have been killed, including 3,637 in Lebanon, 3,375 in Iran and 29 in Israel, while civilian infrastructure has come under attack by all parties to armed conflict across the region. In Lebanon, an estimated 1.4 million people require urgent life‑saving assistance and protection, as displacement becomes increasingly prolonged and pressures on host communities and essential services intensify.   In Sudan, at least 160 children were killed and 85 maimed in the first three months of 2026, while people continued to flee the horrifying war internally, and across borders as refugees.   In Haiti, escalating violence has forced record levels of people from their homes, with 1.5 million people internally displaced by June, including over 300,000 in the capital, Port-au-Prince.   In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 70 children have been killed between January 2025 and mid-May 2026 in the West Bank, while in Gaza, more than 250 children were killed and 260 injured from the announcement of the ceasefire in October 2025 to May 2026.   In Ukraine, May 2026 marked the highest monthly civilian casualty toll - at least 274 civilians were killed and 1,763 injured - since July 2025, while attacks with long-range weapons struck cities and towns far from the frontline.   And when fighting re-erupted between Afghanistan and Pakistan in late-February 2026, it displaced over 100,000 people in Afghanistan, at a time when communities across the country were already struggling to cope with cross-border returns and rising hunger, which has hit women hardest and forced families to take desperate decisions, including selling their daughters into early marriage.   Across several crises, refugees and internally displaced people began to return home, including in Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan. However, they often arrived to lack of functioning basic services, damaged houses and many other challenges.   The human toll of drone warfare, which increased exponentially between 2020 and 2024, was one of the defining trends in armed conflict in early 2026. The expansion in drone use is fundamentally reshaping the way wars are waged, with catastrophic consequences for civilians.   In Sudan, armed drones caused 80 per cent of civilian deaths between January and April 2026, with at least 28 drone attacks harming markets and 12 drone attacks harming health facilities in that four-month period alone.   In Ukraine, short-range drones killed 80 civilians and injured 481 in April 2026, the highest monthly civilian toll from this type of weapon since the start of the invasion. In the Russian Federation, infrastructure and civilian objects have been hit and civilians have died including as a result of drone attacks.   In Colombia, there was a 445 per cent increase in attacks using weaponized drones between 2024 and 2025, with significant humanitarian consequences.   Humanitarians are increasingly in the line of drone fire. In a single week in May, four humanitarian convoys were hit while carrying life-saving assistance to civilians in need in Ukraine. In March, an aid worker was killed in a drone strike on a residential building in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   Olena, surviving on the frontlines of war in Ukraine:   “This cannot be called life,” said 80-year-old Olena, as she reflected on the past four years of the ongoing war in Ukraine. “It is not life when every day, every moment, there is shooting and you are frightened. It feels like there is a ‘hunt for people’ with drones, a human safari,” - she said. “Is that life? No.”   And yet, Olena wakes up to meet every morning. She makes breakfast for herself and her daughter. She waits for news from her family. It is her daily ritual which she helps her hold on. For families in Kherson and other front-line communities, survival has become an act of quiet endurance.   Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Olena and her husband had built a quiet, steady life in a close-knit neighbourhood in Kherson. But all of that changed, when parts of Kherson were occupied, including their neighbourhood. Electricity, water, mobile communication — everything stopped.   Checkpoints appeared. Armed men patrolled the streets. People stayed indoors, speaking in whispers, measuring each movement against fear. Even after Russian forces left, Kherson never truly left the front line: artillery and drones can reach within minutes. And in early-2023, Olena’s home was damaged by shelling.   Today, Olena lives in a rented apartment in Kherson with her daughter. Their pension barely covers expenses. For families living within range of artillery and drones, war is measured in sleepless nights and shattered homes.   “I don’t mourn the loss of property,” Olena’s daughter said. “I mourn the people the war has taken. Everything else can be rebuilt. But lives cannot be returned.”   Conflict-related sexual violence, marked by extreme brutality, has continued to surge, overwhelmingly targeted against women and girls. In 2025 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were more than double the previous year’s figure.   In Haiti, armed groups use sexual violence to spread fear, subjugate, and punish the population. In Myanmar, rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence are used as a tactic of war, including during village raids, at check points, in fields, homes and detention settings and online.   In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), sexual violence against children has become entrenched, systemic and increasingly widespread. In Sudan, sexual violence continues to surge, with the number of women and girls requiring support after experiencing gender-based violence nearly doubling in two years and quadrupling since the start of the war three years ago.   Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan: Shadia, escaping the siege of El Fasher   Shadia, a displaced mother from El Fasher, relates surviving detention and assault before fleeing to Tawila. Her story reflects widespread abuses reported during the RSF takeover that forced mass displacement across North Darfur.   For many people, siege is an ancient word – something from history books. But for Shadia, it is painfully real. She lived through the 500-day siege of El Fasher, trapped with thousands of others in a city cut off by war, with dwindling food and medicines, with troops surrounding them.   The farms around the city were emptied through fear and violence. Those who tried to leave in search of food or to bring supplies back risked being killed, detained, or raped.   Shadia remained in El Fasher as the city starved and collapsed around her, until one desperate attempt to find vegetables outside the city ended in rape.   After her assault, she escaped to Tawila by foot, more than 50km away. Her husband did not escape. When El Fasher fell in October 2025, she was finally reunited with her children. Today, she lives with them in a small, crowded tent in a displacement camp.   Across Sudan, over 12 million people, mostly women and girls, are at risk of gender-based violence – an 80 per cent increase since 2024.   The escalation of conflict in Iran and across the Middle East has far-reaching effects, causing global supply disruptions and rising humanitarian costs. The war has severely restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that carries about one fifth of global oil and gas and a significant share of fertilizer trade.   The disruption has sharply increased fuel, transport and insurance costs, raising humanitarian operating expenses and constraining fertilizer supplies and represents the beginning of a systemic agrifood shock that could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months.   At the same time, the disruptions are significantly increasing the cost and complexity of humanitarian operations at a time when global humanitarian action is desperately under-funded, with longer shipping times, higher fuel and logistics costs, and growing constraints on supply chains reducing the efficiency and reach of response efforts.   Evidence from partners, including WFP, IRC, IFRC, CARE, and other organizations indicate that rising fuel, transport and logistics costs are already increasing the cost of delivering assistance, which may translate into fewer people reached, smaller rations and reduced service packages.   These new pressures come when acute food insecurity and malnutrition are already alarmingly high. Hunger has doubled over the past decade, with 266 million people across 47 countries facing crisis-level conditions in 2025, while an estimated 35.5 million children and about 9.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women were acutely malnourished across 23 countries/territories, including 10 million children facing life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.   Hunger is also highly concentrated: ten countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen—accounting for some two thirds of the global total.   Across crises, women and girls are often the last to eat and the least likely to access scarce resources.   Following the unprecedented declaration of two simultaneous famines in 2024—in parts of Sudan and in Gaza in the Occupied Palestinian Territory—people are projected to face Catastrophe (IPC/CH Phase 5) levels of food insecurity in 2026 in Sudan, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and the Gaza Strip, while the Burhakaba district of Somalia was declared to be at risk of famine in May 2026.   If hostilities in the Middle East persist, around 45 million more people may fall into acute hunger, with the largest projected increases in Africa and Asia.   Meanwhile, climate shocks continued to wreak havoc on people’s lives in the first half of 2026. In December 2025, severe and prolonged flooding affected large parts of southern and central Mozambique, affecting around 724,000 people and driving humanitarian needs requiring a response in 2026. Rivers burst their banks, displacing communities and damaging or destroying homes, health facilities, water systems and other critical infrastructure.   Then, in early 2026, Madagascar was hit in rapid succession by Cyclone Fytia on 31 January and Intense Tropical Cyclone Gezani on 10 February, causing widespread devastation across the northern, western, and eastern regions of the country. The disaster significantly worsened an already fragile humanitarian situation, with more than 681,000 people affected and 632,000 now requiring urgent assistance.   In Cuba, severe fuel shortages due to external measures compounded the needs triggered by Hurricane Melissa (October 2025), affecting access to water, health care, sanitation, education and food, while also limiting partners’ ability to distribute assistance already in‑country.   In Somalia, a severe and prolonged drought—combined with insecurity, cuts to humanitarian assistance and the ripple effects of war in the Middle East—has caused a rapidly intensifying emergency.   Against a backdrop of sustained warming and increasing climate extremes, El Nino conditions, predicted to start in June 2026, are set to increase the risk of extreme weather over the coming months. Although no two events are the same, the 2026 El Nino could well increase the risk of heat waves, severe droughts and torrential rains in multiple parts of the world.   On top of conflict and climate crises, a new Ebola outbreak was declared in May 2026 in both the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda. The resurgence of the virus in DRC is unfolding amid overlapping crises that heighten transmission risks, including conflict, mass displacement, and limited access to healthcare.   Women are disproportionately exposed to infection through their caregiving and frontline health roles. Clashes are driving mass displacement, pushing exposed contacts into overcrowded camps, and cutting off critical epidemiological corridors. Attacks on health facilities and threats to frontline workers are making case detection, contact tracing and safe burials highly complex.   This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the DRC, emerging only a few months after the end of the last epidemic in December 2025. The epidemic was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 17 May 2026, underscoring the urgency of the situation. There is currently no vaccine and no approved treatment for this strain of the Ebola virus, the Bundibugyo virus.   Humanitarians are asking the global community, including Member States, individuals, organizations, companies and parties to conflict:   * Protect civilians in armed conflict, including the aid workers striving to assist them and the medical mission. Uphold international humanitarian law consistently, not only with words, but with concrete actions.   * Fully fund the hyper-prioritized Global Humanitarian Overview immediately, while striving to fund the entire GHO by the end of 2026.   http://humanitarianaction.info/document/mid-year-review-global-humanitarian-overview-delivering-people-crisis-against-odds http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2026 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-humanitarian-assistance-report-2026-enar
	Killing humanitarians is part of a broader attack on international humanitarian law by OCHA, Inter-Agency Standing Committee, UNICEF   May 2026   States must act to protect Civilians in Armed Conflict   Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict is a Responsibility that Member States and the UN Security Council Must Uphold. Statement by Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC):   "As the Protection of Civilians Week unfolds in New York, we strongly condemn and raise the alarm about the growing and blatant violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law meant to protect civilians in armed conflict.   Across conflicts, civilians, including children, are killed, injured, and displaced at an alarming scale. Sexual violence is used as a tactic of war, overwhelmingly affecting women and girls and devastating lives. Homes, schools, places of worship, hospitals, including maternal wards, are destroyed or damaged, as are civilian infrastructure and assets, such as water systems, transport network, markets, food production. Essential services are collapsing. Forced displacement is accelerating.   Conflict-induced hunger and famine are spreading, often driven by unlawful siege tactics, starvation, and the arbitrary denial of humanitarian access. This is happening despite the existence of clear obligations under International Humanitarian Law and the framework reaffirmed by UN Security Council resolution 2417 (2018), which condemns the deliberate starvation of civilians and the use of hunger as method of warfare.   And a decade after the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2286 (2016) that demands the protection of the wounded, sick, and medical personnel, violence, attacks and threats against healthcare workers and facilities continue with impunity. More than 10,000 incidents against health care facilities and workers have been verified to date.   Aid workers are also under attack and killed in unprecedented numbers. More than 1,000 humanitarian colleagues have been killed over the past three years. Many others are arbitrarily detained. Often the first to respond, staff from national and local organisations and community initiatives pay an unacceptably high toll. Many women-led-organisations addressing lifesaving protection and gender-based violence are being attacked.   From Gaza to El Fasher, and from Kharkiv to Beirut, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is devastating civilian lives. At the same time, new technologies, including drones and artificial intelligence, are reshaping warfare and expanding the battlefield.   Wars have rules that apply to all parties to conflict. The problem is not a lack of law. The problem is the failure to uphold them consistently, the erosion of accountability and inaction, even in the face of atrocities.   Protecting civilians is a legal obligation and a moral imperative. For the sake of our shared humanity, rules that protect civilians must be upheld.   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-iasc-protecting-civilians-armed-conflict-responsibility-member-states-and-un http://www.unocha.org/news/un-heads-condemn-failure-protect-civilians-growing-threats-their-security   20 May 2026   Briefing to the UN Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict - by Edem Wosornu, Director, Crisis Response Division for OCHA, on behalf of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:   "One civilian was killed approximately every 14 minutes in 2025. These are only the deaths that the United Nations could document across 20 armed conflicts. We know the real toll is far higher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.   I saw some of this devastation myself over the past year during my visits to countries affected by war.   Civilians, including children, are killed in their homes, in markets, at work, at school, on roads, and while fleeing for safety. All too often, they are not collateral damage. They are the target.   Explosive weapons continue to tear through towns and cities, destroying not only lives but the systems that sustain them such as power grids, water networks, schools, and hospitals.   Health care is under attack. Ten years after this Council adopted Resolution 2286 on the protection of health care in armed conflict, the situation has only gotten worse.   In 2025, the United Nations recorded more than 1,350 attacks on medical care across 18 conflicts. Hospitals and ambulances were hit. Medical personnel were killed, detained, intimidated, or criminalized simply for doing their jobs.   Conflict‑driven hunger has deepened. 147 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2025, driven largely by armed conflict. Two famines were confirmed – not because food was unavailable, but because of the way parties conducted hostilities, used siege tactics, and denied humanitarian access. Food has become a weapon of war.   Sexual violence remains widespread. The United Nations reported over 9,300 cases last year – the overwhelming majority women and girls – many of whom will struggle to get the basic assistance they need. We know that number unfortunately is much higher.   Children are abducted and recruited to fight. Too many are injured and killed – a direct result of the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. Information and Communication Technology, including social media, is used to abduct, to extort, and recruit children.   Journalists are targeted. According to UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), 186 journalists were killed while covering wars and conflict zones between 2022 and 2025 – a 67 per cent increase compared to the period 2018-2021.   Persons with disabilities are left behind when bombs fall and warnings fail.   Last month, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, briefed this Council on attacks against humanitarian workers. Since then, eight more colleagues were confirmed killed in 2025. Already in 2026, 144 humanitarian workers have been reported killed, injured, abducted or detained as they try to serve those in need.   New technologies are intensifying these risks. Armed drones and artificial intelligence are accelerating the pace and reach of violence, often in densely populated areas. The use of drones increased by 4,000 per cent from 2020 to 2024 across conflicts. The impact is not only physical. The impact is psychological – constant fear, constant disruption. The consequences for children are alarming.   None of this is inevitable. These patterns are the result of choices. The choice by parties of conflict to ignore their obligations to protect civilians, and, too often, to target them.   The choice by some to adopt increasingly permissive interpretations of international humanitarian law, hollowing out the very rules designed to protect civilians during war. The choice to subordinate the protection of civilians to claims of military necessity or exceptional threat. The choice to let impunity prevail.   The choice to harness technology to increase lethality, sow devastation, and spread misinformation, instead of using it to better protect civilians.   And the choice to attack the United Nations Charter, humanitarian norms, and the tools built over decades – that extraordinary scaffolding meant to protect people from and during war.   My message to this Council and to the United Nations membership is simple: there is another path. Other choices are possible. They must be made. They must be made because protecting civilians, ensuring respect for the law, and ending impunity is not only a legal and moral obligation.   It is also in Member States’ shared interest. In a world where conflicts are rising and rearmament is accelerating, unrestrained force and unapologetic brutality do not make anyone safer. They put everyone at risk.   Those who believe war will never reach them, their families, or their people are living in a dangerous illusion. War does not respect borders. It does not respect privileges.   So, the law exists. The tools exist. What is needed now is the resolve, the leadership, the courage, and the moral clarity to hold the line and to push it forward.   Protecting civilians requires more than expressions of concern. Protecting civilians requires genuine commitment that translates into concrete action. To uphold the United Nations Charter and prevent disagreements from escalating into armed conflict.   To ensure respect for international humanitarian law, without exceptions, without selectivity, regardless of who the parties are. No reinterpretation. No exceptionalism. No double standards.   To avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and call out those who raze entire cities to the ground. To stop the transfer of weapons when there is a clear risk they will be used against civilians. To safeguard medical care, humanitarian personnel and journalists; not stigmatize them, not criminalize them.   To keep human control over the use of force. To steer AI and technology toward greater, not lesser, protection of civilians. To help victims seek justice. And to end impunity.   Protecting civilians in armed conflict is not charity. It is the minimum that humanity and civilization require. It is central to peace and security.   It is a responsibility of this Council and of every Member State that signed the United Nations Charter. And it is what many people around the world expect the Member States of the United Nations to do. It cannot be outsourced, it cannot be postponed, it cannot be diluted. It is the choice we have to make, now.   http://www.unocha.org/news/ocha-tells-security-council-protecting-civilians-cannot-be-outsourced-postponed-or-diluted http://www.unocha.org/news/over-1000-aid-workers-killed-often-hands-member-states-un-relief-chief-demands-action http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-president-un-security-council-open-debate-protection-civilians-armed-conflict http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-ifrc-world-red-cross-red-crescent-day-call-uphold-protections-civilians-medical-personnel-humanitarian-workers-communities-depend-on http://globalprotectioncluster.org/publications/2474/communication-materials/advocacy-note/poc-advocacy-note-civilian-protection-2026 http://civiliansinconflict.org/press-releases/joint-civil-society-statement-ahead-of-the-2026-open-debate-on-the-protection-of-civilians-in-armed-conflict/   11 April 2026   End impunity for violations of the rules of war - Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee   "We are alarmed by the sustained violations of the rules of war and international humanitarian law.   In just the last month across the Middle East, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many multiple times. The numbers continue to rise and essential services are increasingly difficult to access.   Health workers, hospitals and ambulances have been targeted. Schools have been struck. Civilian infrastructure – including bridges, residential buildings, houses, water facilities and power plants – has been destroyed.   This leaves us especially concerned about women and children and others with specific needs. Global supply chains are also impacted, with food and fuel prices on the rise.   Our humanitarian colleagues have been caught up in the hostilities. Aid workers have been killed or injured in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in Iran and in Lebanon in alarming numbers, national staff and local organizations, working courageously on the humanitarian front lines every day.   We strongly condemn all attacks on civilians, including humanitarian and health workers, as well as civilian objects. We demand that all parties – whether Member States of the United Nations or armed groups – respect their legal obligation to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and civilian infrastructure.   All violations must be met with accountability. Even wars have rules, and these rules must be respected".   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-inter-agency-standing-committee-end-impunity-violations-rules-war-0 http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-principals-inter-agency-standing-committee http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-ifrc-world-red-cross-red-crescent-day-call-uphold-protections-civilians-medical-personnel-humanitarian-workers-communities-depend-on   April 2026   Violence against health care in conflict   A decade after world leaders pledged to protect health workers and facilities in conflict, violence against health care has only deepened. In 2025, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition documented 2,546 attacks in 33 countries — including hospitals bombed, medical staff kidnapped, and drone strikes targeting search-and-rescue teams. Funding cuts have further gutted health services in nearly three-quarters of conflict-affected countries. Our report, Care in the Crosshairs presents the full scope of this crisis and calls on states and international institutions to act.   http://insecurityinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2025-SHCC-Annual-Report.pdf http://safeguarding-health.com/2026/05/01/2026-call-to-action-to-end-violence-against-healthcare/ http://safeguarding-health.com http://insecurityinsight.org/ http://phr.org/news/with-hospitals-and-medics-increasingly-under-fire-countries-must-implement-un-resolution-to-protect-health-care-in-conflict-phr/   New York, 8 April 2026   Statement to the United Nations Security Council by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, pursuant to resolution 2730 (2024) on the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and the protection of United Nations and associated personnel:   "In 2025, at least 326 humanitarians were recorded as killed across 21 countries, bringing the total number of humanitarians killed in three years to over 1,010.   We recognise, grieve and honour each of our 326 colleagues, and commit the work ahead to their memory.   Of those over 1,000 deaths, more than 560 were in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   That number – over 1,000 – compares to 377 recorded as killed globally over the previous three years – so that’s almost tripling the death count.   This is not an accidental escalation – it is the collapse of protection.   These humanitarians were killed while distributing food, water, medicine, shelter. They died in clearly marked convoys and on missions coordinated directly with authorities.   And, too often, they were killed by Member States of the United Nations.   Humanitarians know we face risks. It is the nature of our work, the places in which we operate.   These deaths are not because we are reckless with our lives. They are because parties to the conflict are reckless with our lives.   So, on behalf of over a thousand dead humanitarians and their families, we ask: why?   Is it because the world no longer believes in Security Council resolution 2730, in which you spoke with such moral urgency about ending violence against humanitarians?   Is it because international humanitarian law, forged by a generation of wiser political leaders for just such a time as this, is no longer convenient?   Is it because it is more important to protect those designing, selling, supplying and firing lethal weapons – including drones, cyber tools, artificial intelligence – than protecting us?   Is it because those killing us feel no cost for their actions? How many were prosecuted? How many of their leaders resigned? On how many investigations did the UN Security Council insist? Were you ever selective in your outrage?   Or is it because Member States see these numbers as collateral damage, part of the fog of war? Or worse, are we now seen as legitimate targets?   And perhaps the most chilling question: if these deaths were ‘preventable,’ why then were they not prevented?   Over 110 Member States have chosen to act together through the political declaration on the protection of humanitarians.   Yet across multiple crises, humanitarians are not just being killed. Our action is being restricted, penalized, delegitimized. We are told where not to go, whom not to help.   We are harassed or arrested for doing our job. And we are lied about – and those lies have these consequences.   And, of course, when humanitarians are harmed, aid often stops. Clinics close, food doesn’t arrive.   In Yemen, 73 UN and dozens of NGO personnel remain arbitrarily detained by the Houthis. In Afghanistan and Yemen, women humanitarians are prevented from doing their jobs. In Gaza, Israel restricts UN agencies and international NGOs. In Myanmar, insecurity and access constraints cut off aid to over 100,000 people in a single month.   And in Ukraine, drone attacks have forced aid groups to pull back from frontline communities.   In all these cases, the results of the deaths of humanitarians is too often the death of hope for millions who rely on them.   These trends, alongside the collapse in funding for our lifesaving work, are a symptom of a lawless, bellicose, selfish and violent world. Killing humanitarians is part of the broader attack on the UN Charter and on international humanitarian law.   International humanitarian law was never, and is not now, an academic exercise. In honour of our colleagues killed, and in solidarity with those now risking their lives, we ask you to act with much greater conviction, consistency and courage.   I normally conclude with three asks of this Council. But it seems insulting to over one thousand colleagues killed to echo back to you the commitments of SCR 2730: protection, integrity, accountability.   We come here not to remind you of these commitments, but to challenge you to uphold them. Because if we cast aside these hard-won principles, then the integrity of this Council, and the laws we are here to protect, die with our colleagues".   http://www.unocha.org/news/over-1000-aid-workers-killed-often-hands-member-states-un-relief-chief-demands-action http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/04/1167267
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