Stories

In Zumbare, a rural village of thatched huts in eastern Zimbabwe, the rooftops shimmer under the heat. Riverbeds have run dry, and the surrounding fields are filled with the skeletal remains of maize stalks that failed to mature.

With funds received from donors like the European Union, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is working to register and renew the documents of 150,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Iraq in 2025.

Sally is an 11-year-old Palestinian child who currently lives in a shelter run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Beach Camp in Gaza City. Sally and her family have not left the northern Gaza Strip at any point during the war.

Since 2019, Dr. Anatolii Yaroslavovych Halushchak has been heading the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care for Polytrauma at Mechnykov hospital in Dnipro, one of Ukraine’s most vital medical institutions.

The chants precede his actual arrival. Women and children sing as Salisu Adamu, a UNICEF-supported mobiliser, and his colleagues go from house to house in the Mairi area of Damaturu, in North-East Nigeria’s Yobe State.

Cameroon is facing one of the world’s most overlooked humanitarian emergencies. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s latest Neglected Displacement Crises report, Cameroon now tops the list—highlighting how dire the situation has become for millions affected by conflict, displacement...

Maria is around 40 years old. Together with her family, she lives in a small village just a few dozen kilometres from the front line. Locals used to measure the distance to the nearest large cities — Zaporizhzhia or Dnipro — now they measure how close they are to the positions of Russian troops.

The ongoing conflict in Sudan has forced 15 million people from their homes, with children bearing the brunt of the crisis. As millions face food insecurity, malnutrition and a lack of safe water, urgent lifesaving assistance is needed to protect their futures.

Since January 2025, large-scale military operations have caused widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in Jenin city, its refugee camp, and neighbouring villages. Hundreds of houses have been destroyed while dozens of schools have been forced to close.

Last year, the world broke its own temperature record. The average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, making 2024 the warmest year to date.

From afar, the trees almost look as if they were decorated with oversized Christmas ornaments. But a closer look reveals a more sobering reality: plastic bags swept up by the wind and caught in their branches.

‘When I compare her to other children her age, I feel very emotional. I cannot help it.’ Naima is sitting in a quiet room, hidden from the baking midday sun and away from the clamour of hundreds of other mothers and their children. A wide-eyed baby sits in her lap.

Since 1948, UNRWA has operated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT), Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, providing registered Palestinian refugees with education, healthcare, social services, infrastructure and camp improvements, microfinance, and emergency assistance.

Two years since the conflict in Sudan began in April 2023, women and girls continue to bear the brunt of the crisis. Of the 15 million forcibly displaced people, a significant number are women and girls of reproductive age

The conflict in Western Sahara – once a Spanish colony – has resulted in 5 decades of displacement for the Sahrawi people, with an estimated number of about 173,000 refugees living in 5 isolated camps near Tindouf, in western Algeria.

Since January 2025, Ecuador has been experiencing a prolonged rainy season, causing intense floods and landslides. The western provinces of Manabí, Guayas, El Oro, Los Ríos, and Esmeraldas have been particularly affected.

When Dr Bassil Al Eleh heard the sound of bombing on the morning of 7 October 2023, he couldn’t have predicted the scale of devastation that would unfold over the coming months. The northern Gaza Strip, where he lived, soon became a focal point of relentless attacks.

To combat the disease, the EU and its humanitarian partners train local health workers to identify and treat possible malaria cases, as well as educating communities on how to protect themselves.

This is the story of Happy and Goodness. When Happy was abducted from her village in northern Nigeria in May 2024, Goodness was not yet born.