Stories

For close to 10 years, EU humanitarian aid has been funding the San Raffaele hospital boat, a floating clinic which takes medical care to the most isolated and vulnerable communities affected by the ongoing conflict.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived in Hatay was the silence. Not the absence of people, as the streets of the city are busy again, but the quiet gaps existing where entire buildings once stood.

After years of displacement, families are slowly returning to Al-Tibni, a town in Deir-ez-Zor countryside in northeast Syria. Surrounded by dozens of villages across a wide agricultural region, Al-Tibni is home to tens of thousands of residents, many of whom have returned to rebuild their lives.

The EU is coordinating the largest and most complex UCPM operation ever in Ukraine. All 27 EU Member States, and 6 participating states, have provided in-kind assistance - millions of items, from first aid kits and shelter equipment to firefighting tools, water pumps, generators and fuel.

War and crisis forced 32‑year‑old Achuei to send her 6 children out of Sudan alone. She could only afford 6 tickets on a crowded truck heading towards safety. Instead of leaving one child behind, she stayed.

The work of a rescuer has always been a symbol of self-sacrifice. But for Ukrainian state emergency service personnel, in the time of full-scale war, it has become a daily act of heroism, marked by constant danger and unpredictable challenges.

I first came to Sudan’s Darfur region over 2 decades ago, when the world was just beginning to grasp the scale of the 1st war. I remember the dust, the long drives between settlements, the resilience of people who had already lost too much.

In 2025, nutrition supply chains were severely disrupted because of widespread funding cuts. These shortages of essential therapeutic and supplementary nutrition products severely impacted services for children already suffering from acute malnutrition.

Mali is currently facing one of the world’s most severe, least publicised, and most underfunded humanitarian crises - a situation likely to worsen in 2026.

Tymofii Bespalov is one of 5,000 Ukrainian patients transferred to hospitals in 22 countries through the European Union’s medical evacuation programme conducted under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

When the earthquake struck Myanmar in March 2025, it shattered more than buildings and roads. For families already living close to the edge, it wiped out the little they had to keep going. With EU funding, WFP provided multi-purpose cash assistance so they could keep their livelihoods afloat.

After decades spent building lives across the border, thousands of Afghans are now returning from neighbouring countries every day – many pushed out by mounting pressure, restrictive policies, and deteriorating living conditions, while others face sudden, forced deportation.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, violence by armed groups seeking control of territory continues to steeply increase. Rising food insecurity and a worsening displacement crisis, mean at least 14.9m people are in need of aid according to OCHA.

In Afghanistan, the guns have fallen silent, but the war remains buried beneath the soil in the form of deadly explosive items, including landmines and unexploded remnants of war.

Yemen remains one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. With deteriorating food security, soaring malnutrition rates, and recurring epidemic outbreaks, the country is on the brink of collapse.

For more than 2 years, the Sourou Valley was a place of silence. In the Boucle du Mouhoun of northwestern Burkina Faso, thousands of families lived under a total blockade - an act of strangulation that turned villages into open-air prisons.

Viktor, Evhenia and Hennadiy talk about their experience of evacuating and finding support in a transit centre thanks to the World Food Programme and the European Union.

In Cishemere, a transit camp near Burundi’s largest city, Bujumbura, thousands of people who fled violence in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo live in extremely squalid conditions.

Do you know what a water spreading weir is? Many people don’t, but for host communities and Sudanese refugees in Chad, this is a lifeline.