IOM’s Missing Migrants Project registers highest death count in 2023

IOM’s Missing Migrants Project registers highest death count in 2023

At least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2023, making it the deadliest year on record, according to data collected by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. The 2023 death toll represents a tragic increase of 20 percent compared to 2022, highlighting the urgent need for action to prevent further loss of life.

March 7, 2024 30

Africa

Sudan war may spark world’s largest hunger crisis

The war in Sudan could trigger the world’s largest hunger crisis unless fighting stops, The World Food Programme has warned. The BBC reports that more than 10 months of fighting between rival forces has left nearly 14,000 people dead, over eight million displaced, and much of the country’s population cut off and facing rising hunger.

March 6, 2024 18

Africa

Thousands displaced in Mozambique due to unrest

A new outbreak of unrest in northern Mozambique by jihadist insurgency has forced thousands to flee their homes, according to UN figures and sources in Cabo Delgado province. The AFP news agency reports that an alert from the UN migration agency IOM said recent attacks in the Macomia, Chiure and Mecufi districts had displaced 13 088 people - most of them children - by bus, canoe, and on foot.

February 22, 2024 9

Africa

DRC launches appeal for humanitarian aid

The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the humanitarian community have launched an appeal for US$ 2.6 billion to fund the country's 2024 humanitarian response plan. The funds are aimed at providing life-saving assistance and protection to 8.7 million people in need. Diane Penn reports. Meanwhile, according to Xinhua News Agency, for more than a year, the humanitarian crisis in the DRC has reached alarming levels, as […]

February 21, 2024 23

World

Israeli siege has placed Gazans at risk of starvation − prewar policies made them vulnerable in the first place

Displaced Gazan children wait in line to receive food. Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images Yara M. Asi, University of Central Florida The stories of hunger emerging from war-ravaged Gaza are stark: People resorting to grinding barely edible cattle feed to make flour; desperate residents eating grass; reports of cats being hunted for food. The numbers involved are just as despairing. The world’s major authority on food insecurity, the IPC Famine […]

February 16, 2024 17

World

Haiti’s people suffer ‘deepening human rights catastrophe’

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk has issued an urgent warning about the deepening human rights catastrophe in Haiti, after figures showed that January was the most violent month in more than two years. At least 806 people, not involved in the violent exchanges taking place, were killed, injured, or kidnapped in January 2024.

February 12, 2024 29

World

Yemeni children face severe malnutrition crisis, warns WHO

The World Health Organization representative Dr. Arturo Pesigan warned Tuesday that roughly half of all Yemeni children under the age of five are malnourished — a total of 2.4 million, while 17.8 million people in the country require health support.

January 24, 2024 46

Africa

More than 200 starve to death in Tigray

More than 200 people have starved to death since July in Edaga Arbi town, in Ethiopia's drought-hit and war-scarred Tigray region. Local authorities say another 16 have died in nearby Adwa town. According to the BBC, officials in Tigray have warned that the region is on the brink of famine on a scale last seen in 1984, prompting the global fundraising music event Live Aid the following year. The central […]

January 17, 2024 33

Africa

DR Congo capital in tumult as river bursts banks

Burst riverbanks are causing turmoil in DR Congo's capital Kinshasa, with dark and foul-smelling water pouring into homes across working-class neighborhoods in the central African megacity. The impoverished metropolis of some 15 million people sits on the Congo River -- the second largest in Africa after the Nile -- which has swollen to near-record levels over the past several weeks. Kinshasa is crisscrossed with small rivers and waterways, which often […]

January 12, 2024 32