The events of the year have weighed heavily on several parts of the world, with wars and severe humanitarian crises worsening over time. The global response to such multifaceted challenges has weakened considerably compared to two decades ago, making it increasingly difficult to secure the necessary funds to assist those affected in regions such as the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Sahara.

Most humanitarian crises today are man-made. Reporting on Tigray on the BBC website in 2021, Alex de Waal, an expert on humanitarian issues and Africa, wrote that war prevented farmers from working their fields, reducing already limited food supplies. The use of rape as a weapon of war restricts the movement of mothers and caregivers, primarily responsible for feeding children, resulting in malnutrition and the loss of many young lives, he added.

Currently, aside from Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Ethiopia are grappling with some of the most acute humanitarian crises. However, focusing on these countries should not deflect from the dire situations in other countries like Afghanistan, Mali, and Myanmar, where people continue to struggle without access to food, clean water, or primary healthcare.

YEMEN: Nine years into the war between the Houthis, their rivals in the internationally recognised government, and southern separatists supported by the Arab Coalition, Yemen remains gripped by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Over 150,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. Compounding the devastation, cholera has swept through the nation in two waves.

Between 2015 and 2022, over 4.5 million Yemenis — 14 percent of the population of 30 million — were forcibly displaced, becoming homeless and unemployed. According to UNICEF’s late 2023 estimates, at least 18.2 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The toll on children is particularly harrowing, with nearly 10 million requiring immediate relief and countless others deprived of access to quality education due to the collapse of schools, the absence of teachers, and a lack of basic educational infrastructure.

In September, the UN issued a stark warning about the worsening humanitarian crisis amid renewed escalation in which the Houthis are involved. Addressing the UN Security Council, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg cautioned that the escalation in Yemen “keeps intensifying and risks spiralling out of control”, even as the intensity of violence remains lower than before the 2022 truce brokered between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in the Middle East’s poorest nation.

Joyce Msuya, acting under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs, said in the same UN session, “By the end of 2024, more than 600,000 children in government-controlled areas are estimated to be acutely malnourished, and around 118,000 are projected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition… Time is of the essence if we are to prevent catastrophe.”

Moreover, the Houthi conflict with Israel in the Red Sea may drag Yemen into more harrowing scenarios, the repercussions of which are still unclear.

SOMALIA: In a nation that has been embroiled in a protracted civil war since the fall of Siad Barre in 1990, the crisis remains alarming. In 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 6.9 million Somalis — or two in every five of the country’s 17 million inhabitants — urgently require humanitarian aid.

The devastation wrought by the worst drought in decades during the 2022 season was compounded by severe flooding triggered by above-average rainfall in April and May this year. However, years of prolonged drought had already eroded the topsoil, exacerbating the impact of the floods. The deluges devastated critical infrastructure, including schools, and damaged water and sanitation systems, thereby contributing to a cholera outbreak. The October-December season is expected to yield below-average rainfall, signalling diminished agricultural output at the national level and compounding food insecurity.

Despite the gravity of the crisis, the United Nations Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) has received only 40 per cent of its required funding. Of the $2.6 billion needed to support 7.6 million people, only $1.6 billion has been secured, leaving a substantial gap of 37 percent. Aid efforts have so far reached just 1.8 million people, and in 10 regions identified as priorities under the plan, only two have received more than half of their funding requirements.

Aggravating this dire scenario, 3.5 million people have been displaced due to drought and violence, including Al-Shabaab terrorism, while 4.4 million face famine or acute malnutrition.

ETHIOPIA: Over the past three years, Ethiopia has endured relentless turmoil, grappling with civil wars in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara. These were compounded by the adverse effects of climate change and a cholera outbreak. However, 2024 stands out as a year of unparalleled crisis.

As Africa’s second most populous nation, with 125 million people and a demographic of 80 ethnic groups — many of whom harbour aspirations for self-rule or independence — Ethiopia has been a theatre of conflict. The most brutal of these conflicts has been the civil war in Tigray, located in the north, which claimed 400,000 lives and involved egregious human rights violations committed by both the Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

The country has witnessed a civil war between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups, displacing over one million people, as well as violent clashes involving the government and the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups resulting in hundreds of deaths and the displacement of thousands. The cumulative toll of these crises has left 15 million Ethiopians in urgent need of humanitarian aid, including over four million internally displaced persons.

Neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia has shared the same waves of drought, totalling five waves between 2018 and 2023 and it is still reeling from their aftermath. Even though rainfall this season met the national average, the region’s agricultural output is projected to be average or slightly below average at best. The Oromo, Somali and Omo River Basin regions remain acutely affected.

The Horn of Africa region is one of the most affected by climate change, according to UN reports for 2021, 2022, and 2023. The UN relief budget in Ethiopia faces a deficit of more than $800 million out of a total of $3.237 billion needed to address the country’s humanitarian crisis.
SYRIA: The humanitarian situation in Syria remains far from stable following a devastating decade-long civil war that claimed nearly 350,000 lives and forced 13 million Syrians to flee, spreading to neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt. The humanitarian catastrophe was compounded by the February 2023 earthquake, which affected eight million people.

In a nation with a population of fewer than 25 million, 15 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Between 2020 and 2021, food shortages in northern Syria were so severe that some relief organisations labelled them “famine” or described conditions bordering on famine. The worsening economic conditions as a result of the protracted conflict destroyed the country’s ability to respond to the people’s needs, rendering Syria one of the region’s most acute humanitarian crises.

A survey conducted last year by the UNHCR revealed that 56 percent of displaced Syrians expressed the intention to return home “someday”, which means that nearly half the displaced have no immediate plans to do so. Fewer than one percent expressed their intention to go home within the year. Indeed, the fall of the Al-Assad regime may make Syria’s conditions far worse. Humanitarian appeals in Syria have consistently fallen short of their funding targets, severely hampering relief operations. Here as elsewhere, resolving the humanitarian crises is contingent upon durable political solutions.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly