Syria, 28 February 2025 – Around the world, Ramadan is a time to come together as a family. It represents the warmth of home, sharing a good meal and enjoying a variety of food.
As Ramadan arrives, millions of Syrians prepare to once again mark the occasion with the little resources they have. Photo: IOM Türkiye
But for millions of Syrians still displaced 14 years after the conflict began, this Ramadan comes with the heavy burden of poverty and hunger.
(UN News)* — At night he sleeps under a tarpaulin sheet on the ruins of his family home. Like others returning to northern Gaza after months of being displaced by war, Sufian Al-Majdalawi clings to whatever he can find.
UN News | Sufyan Al-Majdalawi inspects the rubble of his home in Jabalia in northern Gaza.
Using small tools and his bare hands, he sifts through mounds of twisted debris and dirt to try and unearth belongings and important paperwork such as property deeds to prove he is the legal owner.
He dreams of one day being able to rebuild; in the short-term, he hopes that even the rubble might hold some value.
The war in Gaza has left an unprecedented level of destruction, with an estimated 51 million tons of rubble blanket the landscape where bustling neighborhoods once thrived.
(UN News)* — The ongoing emergency in Haiti is crushing children’s chances of an education and a better future as scores of youngsters are recruited by heavily armed and violent gangs, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday [].
UNICEF’s representative in Haiti, Geetanjali Narayan, told journalists that just last month, armed groups destroyed 47 schools in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, adding to the 284 schools destroyed in 2024.
“The relentless attacks on education are accelerating, leaving hundreds of thousands of children without a place to learn,” she said.
(UN News)* — The United States has cut $377 million worth of funding to the UN reproductive and sexual health agency, UNFPA, it was confirmed on Thursday [], leading to potentially “devasting impacts”, on women and girls.
“At 7pm on 26 February, UNFPA was informed that nearly all of our grants (48 as of now) with USAID and the US State Department have been terminated,” the UN agency said in a statement.
“This decision will have devastating impacts on women and girls and the health and aid workers who serve them in the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”
A dramatic rise in Israeli military violence has caused the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since the Israeli occupation began. As the ‘Gazafication’ of the West Bank unfolds, vital humanitarian work and projects are being delayed or destroyed, Oxfam on 25th February 2025 warned.
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Photo from OXFAM International
More than 40,000 people have been forcibly displaced since the Gaza temporary ceasefire came into force on 19 January – the highest number since Israel occupied the Palestinian Territory including the West Bank, in 1967.
(UN News)* — UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday [] called for an end to the “abhorrent, dehumanizing narratives” that continue to hamper a positive outcome to the Middle East crisis.
Mr. Türk – making his closing remarks during the session reporting on the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the Human Rights Council – said he was deeply troubled by the “dangerous manipulation of language” and disinformation that surrounds discussions over the Palestine-Israel conflict.
(UN News)* — Ongoing gang violence in Haiti has displaced more than a million people, nearly a tenth of the population, or three times more than last year, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said on Thursday [].
The “unprecedented crisis” in Haiti means that every number presented “is a new record,” said Ulrika Johnson, speaking from neighbouring Dominican Republic to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York.
“The suffering that this is causing is immense, and I would say it is really heartbreaking to see, to witness, to listen to victims of violence,” she added.
(UN News)* — Weeks of deadly Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank have turned Palestinian communities into “battlefields” and left 40,000 people homeless, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday [].
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The violence has seen exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants – and the use of bulldozers in refugee camps for the first time in 20 years which have destroyed public services, including vital electricity and water networks.
(UN News)* —A senior UN aid official has called on the Security Council to ensure better protection for civilians in Sudan together with unhindered humanitarian access, as the brutal war between rival militaries approaches a second year.
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WFP | Displaced Sudanese people wait to receive food from the World Food Programme (WFP). (file)
“Now more than ever, two years on, the people of Sudan need your action,” Edem Wosornu of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, said in a briefing to ambassadors on Wednesday [].
“Nearly two years of relentless conflict in Sudan have inflicted immense suffering and turned parts of the country into a hellscape,” she added, listing some of the impacts.
Mogadishu, 26 February 2025 – New data from Somalia shows that 4.4 million people could face hunger by April 2025, driven by worsening drought conditions, conflict and high food prices.
Photo from OXFAM International
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 