#humanitarian-crisis

#humanitarian-crisis

Under international humanitarian law, healthcare must be protected and not attacked. At a briefing on Thursday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of WHO, said it had verified 13 attacks on health care in Iran and one in Lebanon. Ghebreyesus did not give further details, or attribute blame, but said healthcare must be protected.

Pakistan said its military posts along the border came under attack by Afghan Taliban forces on Tuesday, sparking renewed clashes that killed 67 Afghan troops and one Pakistani soldier. Afghanistan rejected that account as 'baseless.' The Taliban government in Kabul instead said its forces had successfully repelled attacks from Pakistan and killed four Pakistani soldiers.

A few blocks from Revolution Square, in a former shantytown in Havana, Dr. Omitsa Valdes holds her consultations. It's a dusty, dilapidated place where she tells patients they must bring their own syringe and medication from home. But if a general checkup is needed, including urine and blood tests, Dr. Valdes is even more direct: If you can get it done yourself, I'll write the order.

With exhausted steps and eyes filled with tears, Hanaa al-Mabhuh moves between the hall displaying photographs of bodies and the morgue at al-Shifa Hospital in a grim search for any trace of her missing son. The 56-year-old mother wipes away tears with the back of her hand and stares at the decomposed faces on the screen, torn between the desire to find out what happened to her youngest child, while at the same time fearing he might be among the dead handed over by Israel under a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

On 1 February 2021, Myanmar's democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup. There were mass protests against the military seizing power and many people were arrested for criticizing the new leadership. Frequent military airstrikes killed civilians and destroyed schools, hospitals and places of worship. According to the UK government, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar now need humanitarian aid.

In 2025, the administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the US Agency for International Development to be closed; this year, it withdrew the country from 66 international organizations. Other Western nations that are plagued with high levels of debt and pressure to prioritize domestic challenges have slashed their foreign aid, too. According to projections, official development assistance dropped by 9-17% in 2025, amounting to some US$55 billion.

Montaha Omer Mustafa, 18, was among many people who managed to get out of el-Fasher before the city's seizure by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, but only after paying for passage and going days on foot with little water, moving through villages and scrubland. As fighting closed in on the last big city held by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in North Darfur state, tens of thousands of residents fled westwards, abandoning homes, possessions, and even family members.

Sudan's military says it has broken through a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group of the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli, marking its second major advance in less than a week. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of the country, visited Sudan's public television station in the city of Omdurman on Tuesday to assert that his forces had opened a supply route to the capital.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

As RSF fighters swarmed in, they opened fire on civilians scrambling over walls and hiding in trenches in a vain effort to escape, while mowing down others with vehicles, Ibrahim said. He said seeing so many killed felt like he was running towards his own death. It was a despicable feeling, he said. How can el-Fasher fall? Is it over? I saw people running in terror. It was like judgement day. Within hours, RSF fighters were storming homes, demanding phones at gunpoint and looting property.

Humanitarian crisis worsens in Yemen as power struggles intensify and aid gaps grow. Yemen's conflict is entering yet another volatile chapter, not towards peace, but into a sharper power struggle. Former partners Saudi Arabia and the UAE are drifting apart, local factions are recalculating, and control of the south and east hangs in the balance, while the Houthis hold firm in the north.