27 August 2025 — In Nigeria, land is more than property. It is identity, security, and livelihood.
But for many women and displaced people, especially in regions affected by conflict, land is also a source of uncertainty, dispute and exclusion.
Sarah stands in front of her farm. She now has a document that secures her tenure for this land, and even her children can use it when needed. Photo: Kumbo Dung/NRC
With no formal documents to prove ownership, many live in fear of losing the little they have.
UNITED NATIONS, New York – Across the world, wars are being waged on the very systems set up to protect civilian populations: Health workers, hospitals, health centres and ambulances are being targeted in horrifying numbers.
On 30 March 2025, a rescue operation in Tal Al Sultan, Rafah, Gaza,recovered the bodies of 15 humanitarian workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the Palestinian Civil Defense and the United Nations. The available information indicates that they were killed by Israeli forces on 23 March and buried under the sand.
Attacks against health facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, and more than 900health workers were killed last year.
Humanitarian aid workers dedicated to supporting the most vulnerable in multiple crises were also killed in record numbers in 2024. Yet 2025 is outpacing even these dark statistics.
Decades of progress on tackling malnutrition are under threat from funding cuts.
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UNICEF/UNI428897/UNICEF/YPN
Malnutrition is deadly. A child suffering from severe acute malnutrition is nine times more likely to die than a well-nourished child.
But the dire consequences of malnutrition aren’t always immediate or visible from the outside.
Poor diets also inflict devastating damage on the inside, stunting children’s growth, impairing their brain development and leaving them susceptible to disease.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 25 2025 (IPS)* –– Sexual violence against women and children during wars should not be considered collateral damage. “It is strategy, it is systematic, and it is used more and more,” Permanent Representative of Denmark to the United Nations (UN) Christina Markus Lassen said.
Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs the Security Council during the meeting on women, peace and security. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Lassen was speaking at the August 19 Security Council meeting on Women and Peace and Security after the 16th annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violencerevealed a 25 percent increase in conflict-related sexual violence from the previous year and concerning global trends on the use of sexual violence as a form of torture and against prisoners of war.
Women and girls made up 92 percent of the victims; sexual violence against children increased by 35 percent, the report, which was published on August 14 said.
26 August 2025 — The Israeli military’s extensive and deliberate destruction of civilian property and agricultural land across southern Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International said in a new briefing.
A frame of a video circulated on social media in November 2024 shows the destruction by manually laid explosives of a mosque and nearby buildings in Dhayra, southern Lebanon.
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Homes and buildings destroyed by explosives and bulldozers
More than 10,000 structures heavily damaged or destroyed, even after ceasefire declared
“Israeli troops deliberately left a trail of devastation as they moved through the region” – Erika Guevara Rosas
31 August 2025 — Hundreds of media outlets, brought together by the campaigning platform Avaaz and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), are waging a campaign calling for the protection of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip, an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters and that foreign press be granted independent access to the territory.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)* ––Brazil, which stands out for exporting basic products such as iron ore, oil, coffee, and soybeans, rather than industrialized goods with higher added value, now intends to make a shift regarding rare earths, a key component in new technologies that it has in abundance.| En español
The turbines in a wind farm, like this one in the Northeast region of Brazil, contain magnets made from rare earths in their generators. This makes rare earths, which Brazil has in abundance, indispensable for both decarbonized electricity generation and the development of electric motors in the automotive sector and others. Credit: Fotos Públicas
Brazil is the second country in reserves of this natural resource, estimated at 21 million tons, surpassed only by China, with 44 million tons, explained Julio Nery, director of Mining Affairs at theBrazilian Mining Institute (Ibram).
Together, the two countries account for about two-thirds of the total.
(UN News)* — Humanitarians continue to push for more support for Sudan amid ongoing conflict, rising malnutrition and a cholera outbreak, a senior UN aid coordination official said on Thursday [] in New York.
Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy for the humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on her recent visit to Sudan and neighbouring Chad – a critical entry point for aid and a haven for some 850,000 people who have fled fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.
The war erupted in April 2023 and she said it has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with some 30 million people needing assistance.
(UN News)* — State authority is crumbling across Haiti while gang violence engulfs the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, “paralysing daily life and forcing families to flee,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Thursday [].
Six million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, while 1.3 million people – half of them children – having been forced to flee their homes, he added.
‘Shamefully overlooked’
Haiti now ranks among the five hunger hotspots worldwide that are of “highest concern,” said the UN chief.
Yet it remains the world’s least funded humanitarian appeal. Less than 10 per cent of the $908 million needed has been received.
IOM Calls for International Support as Yemen Faces Deadly Flooding.
IOM supports communities in Yemen with relief, shelter, and essential services during emergencies. Photo: IOM/Haithm Abdulbaqi
Aden, 28 August 2025 (IOM)* –Since early August, torrential rains and violent windstorms have devastated communities across Yemen, destroying homes, sweeping away livelihoods, and displacing thousands of families already living in precarious conditions.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 