More than 300 million people will need emergency humanitarian aid in 2025 due to wars and the consequences of climate change, according to estimates revealed on Wednesday, December 4, by the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). ). A figure comparable to that of the year that ends and that confirms a global humanitarian situation of unprecedented severity. In ten years, the affected population has multiplied by six and the number of affected countries has increased from twenty-two to seventy-two.
Faced with this explosion of needs, the UN can only confirm, year after year, its limits: its fundraising appeals – 49.6 billion dollars (47 billion euros) in 2024 – are less than half covered. However, its objective is increasingly stricter towards the populations most in need, in areas where it is possible to intervene. “We lack funds, we are overwhelmed and, in addition, humanitarian personnel face attacks”summarizes Tom Fletcher, Deputy Secretary General of OCHA, pointing out the situation of “Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, where wars are characterized by the intensity and ferocity of massacres, disregard for international law and deliberate obstruction of the efforts of humanitarian organizations to save lives”. Since the beginning of the year, the organization has recorded the deaths of 281 humanitarian workers (more than 60% of them in the Gaza Strip), more than 500 attacks and 2,000 attacks on health infrastructure.
By 2025, OCHA hopes to raise $47.4 billion to benefit 190 million people in thirty-two countries. More than a third is destined for the Middle East, where the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and then against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the civil wars in Yemen and Syria have caused – in addition to direct victims – displacement of masses of the population. .
“Budget cuts announced”
Africa is also seeing crises multiply and worsen under the combined effect of conflict and extreme weather events. From Burkina Faso to Somalia, in southern Africa, where drought has ruined much of the crops and decimated herds, sixteen countries have joined the United Nations appeal. In Sudan, 30 million people, or more than 60% of the population, need assistance due to the civil war which, in addition to the approximately 7 million people displaced, has also led to the influx of almost 2 million refugees into neighboring countries. . Overshadowed by Gaza and Ukraine, it is the world’s leading humanitarian crisis.
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