Stories

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.

Since 2016, Burkina Faso has been engulfed in an unprecedented security crisis, triggering a devastating humanitarian situation. Once known for its rich cultural heritage and resilient communities, the country is now at the epicentre of a multifaceted crisis.

Over 16 months of war devastated the Gaza Strip. What was once a place with resourceful people struggling with many challenges and under Israeli blockade, is now a grim landscape of rubble, tents, and overcrowded, bullet-riddled makeshift shelters.

2 years into Sudan’s brutal war, 15 million people - 1 in 3 Sudanese - are displaced, including nearly 4 million who fled to neighbouring countries.

The sun had just risen above the palm trees when armed men emerged from the bush and entered Quiterajo, a small coastal town in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province.

On World Health Day, the European Union reaffirms its steadfast commitment to health in humanitarian settings and fragile regions such as Cameroon's North-West.

In Southern Africa, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Air Service is, quite simply, a lifeline. “UNHAS is more than an air service, it is a lifeline,” says Mamadou Mbaye, Country Director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Madagascar.

The sound of water flowing from a tap should be ordinary, not a luxury. Nevertheless, for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, such a familiar everyday thing as water in their own homes has become a reminder of a past that did not have a war.

In the heart of Aby-Adi, a town in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, which was affected by conflict between 2020 and 2022, 48-year-old Birzaf Gebreabezg’s stood out among the crowd.

Since the Sudan conflict began in April 2023, millions have faced immense hardship. Through EU-funded IRC programmes, Dr. Mogahed Ilkeet, delivers life-saving care at the Tunaydbah camp in Sudan, near the Ethiopian border.

The Darien Gap, the only overland link between South and Central America, spans more than 60 miles of swamps, dense rainforest, rushing rivers, and rugged mountains. This extraordinary yet treacherous jungle is among the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

Civilians in northern Mali are caught in the crossfire of an escalating conflict. Often wrongly associated with non-state armed groups, they bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks, with violations perpetrated by all parties to the conflict, and suffer from the absence of basic services.

Halyna’s daughter Sofiia was born with short bowel syndrome and oesophageal atresia, a rare congenital disability that prevents a baby from digesting food because their oesophagus has not formed properly.

Shocked and hungry, families fled to Armenia with whatever they could carry, marking the near-total depopulation of Karabakh's Armenians. As refugees, they now make up 4% of Armenia's population. This conflict left thousands needing shelter, food, health, and psychosocial support.

Across East Africa, millions of displaced people are navigating the hardships of conflict and displacement with resilience and hope. The EU is supporting people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda with life-saving cash and nutrition assistance.

Conflict and climate change have pushed millions of people in South Sudan to the brink of starvation.

Since 2023, a consortium of 6 international humanitarian organisations has been carrying out a comprehensive cash distribution programme to empower individuals and families in several regions in Ethiopia, based on an assessment of the most acute needs.

Access to education, menstrual hygiene management, and psychosocial support are crucial for children growing up in refugee settlements. Thanks to funding from the European Union, Finn Church Aid (FCA) is addressing these challenges through the INCLUDE project.

730 days later... And the pain is still as fresh as the first day. On 6 February 2023, a powerful earthquake shook 11 provinces in Türkiye, leaving more than 53,000 dead, 107,000 injured, and 164,000 buildings in ruins. In an instant, millions of lives were changed.