UN News Today 30 April 2025 |

Millions will die from funding cuts, says UN aid chief

Humanitarian operations everywhere continue to be shut down by sweeping cutbacks to lifesaving funding which will result in millions of people dying.

That’s the stark warning from the UN’s top aid official, Tom Fletcher, who’s in Afghanistan, where half the population need relief assistance.

Speaking from an overcrowded hospital in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan Mr. Fletcher warned that the financial crisis has already forced UN aid teams to close 400 primary health centres across the region so far.

“You see the impact of that in major hospitals like this one where you have three to four people to a bed when you can see the newborn children not getting the support they need, where you can see doctors making the most horrific decisions about which lives to save and which lives not to save…This is real and this is the impact of aid cuts and I can’t sugar this pill. The impact of aid cuts is that millions die.”

His warning echoes dire announcements of drastic cost-cutting measures in response to longstanding but now acute funding shortfalls by many UN relief agencies.

Back in Afghanistan, the lack of investment in aid relief has also affected female Afghan health workers whose salaries are being cut by up to two-thirds.

As part of his official visit to Afghanistan, Mr. Fletcher met de facto provincial governor Mullah Shirin Akhund to discuss the need to address Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.

It comes after more than four decades of conflict that have left some 22.9 million people needing humanitarian assistance to survive.

In Sudan, war continues to displace thousands: OCHA

Sudan’s war continues to uproot communities who need everything, say humanitarians who are trying to bring them food and water, shelter and other lifesaving support.

In a call for great er assistance, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, warned that besieged town of El Fasher in Darfur has also faced “intensified shelling”.

Media reports indicate that dozens of people have been killed there, El Fasher which is Darfur’s last major urban centre still held by government forces. They’ve been fighting paramilitaries for more than two years.

Aid teams say that thousands of people who’ve fled the violence have now arrived in Sudan’s Northern State where they’ve been forced to seek safety in flimsy shelters. Many are getting just one meal a day.

OCHA also warned that that newly displaced individuals face many protection risks including harassment and intimidation at checkpoints.

Haiti gangs displace families, target NGOs, block humanitarian aid

Unchecked gang violence across Haiti is preventing essential aid from getting through to hundreds of thousands of displaced people, with trucks blocked, supplies burned and NGO vehicles targeted, aid teams report.

In a rare piece of good news from Haiti, displaced communities fleeing looters in central areas of the Caribbean nation now have access to health clinics set up by the UN.

Announcing the initiative, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said that mobile surgeries have been deployed to Hinche and Boucan Carrée “to guarantee access to care for the displaced.”

Last week, more than 300 people received care thanks to UNICEF workers.

Meanwhile, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, warned that armed groups continue to clash in Haiti, displacing families and disrupting humanitarian operations across multiple departments.

Attacks have been reported on people’s homes, hospitals and other public buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond.

The UN migration agency, IOM, said that more than 200,000 people have taken shelter in makeshift camps and 90 per cent of them are in the capital.

Daniel Johnson, UN News

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