Poring over our coverage of the past year, there are so many articles our editors could have chosen to highlight. Here is a list of just 10 that left a strong impression on our team, and that will continue to have particular significance heading into 2025.
Targeted aid killings: How Israel starved a population and sowed chaos in northern Gaza
Chosen by Special Coverage Editor Eric Reidy
Today, a situation of anarchy reigns throughout the Gaza Strip, with armed gangs looting humanitarian convoys and selling the aid at extortionate prices. How did we get here? The New Humanitarian spent seven months piecing together the story of a last-ditch effort by UN agencies to work with local Palestinian communities to secure aid deliveries to northern Gaza last March – and how the initiative ultimately fell apart under a series of Israeli attacks. At the time, the north had been largely cut off for months, and children were dying of starvation on an almost daily basis. For a few days, the partnership worked, facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance without the looting or Israeli violence that had been impeding aid efforts for months. Then the Israeli military killed dozens of Palestinians involved in the effort, ultimately forcing the initiative to fall apart. Attempts to establish a safe, orderly, and effective humanitarian response in northern Gaza have never really recovered. Ultimately, the investigation reveals how Israel’s politicisation and obstruction of aid in Gaza created a power vacuum and allowed a war economy based on might-makes-right and profiteering to take root even as people in the enclave have starved.
The Yemen Listening Project
Chosen by Middle East Editor Annie Slemrod
Long before all eyes shifted to Ukraine and then Gaza (and before Sudan’s needs arguably overtook all others), Yemen was often called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But despite more than nine years of war and economic devastation, it has rarely made the headlines. And when it does, foreign journalists – not to mention the people planning aid programmes and wars – rarely speak to, or listen to, ordinary Yemenis about what it’s like to live through it all. With The Yemen Listening Project, we did just that, asking Yemenis one question: “How has the war impacted your life?” We made it easy to reply in Arabic or English by setting up a dedicated Yemeni WhatsApp line, website, and more. The responses soon came flooding in, as people shared stories about the trauma of bombings, personal successes despite the odds, the pain of exile, and why things that seem small – like road closures– actually make a massive difference in day-to-day life. The result is an unfiltered look at what Yemen’s war and humanitarian crisis has been like for millions of people, in their own words. It goes beyond faceless narratives, press releases, and aid numbers, and it’s worth spending some time with this year.
Joy and pain in Aleppo as residents ask: What next?
Chosen by Managing Editor Andrew Gully
The one seismic event in 2024 that no one seemed to see coming was the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, as the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group led by Ahmed al-Sharaa swept through Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and into Damascus in just a few short December days. As observers struggled to comprehend what had just happened and what the broader significance might be, emotions in Aleppo were mixed. From 2012 to 2016, the city was fiercely contested between rebel groups and al-Assad’s forces, culminating in a horrific Russian-backed siege marked by extensive war crimes. For this article, Mahmoud Abo Rass, a Syrian journalist based nearby in northwestern Idlib province, travelled to Aleppo to speak to people face to face. As some family members reunited for the first time in years, he found a joy many struggled to put into words. But many in the city, and across Syria, were also trying to come to terms with the deep pain inflicted on them through more than five decades of authoritarian rule and 13 years of civil war: hundreds of thousands tortured, killed, and disappeared; millions displaced or living abroad as refugees. For all, there remained great uncertainty about the future in a still badly fractured country, with an economy in ruins and an overwhelming humanitarian crisis that somehow needs addressing.
‘We survive together’: The communal kitchens fighting famine in Khartoum
Chosen by Africa Editor Philip Kleinfeld
The war in Sudan has left little to be hopeful about, producing the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises, but the work of grassroots volunteer groups known as emergency response rooms is a clear exception. As international aid groups and the Sudanese government have failed the population, neighbourhood-based volunteers have stepped up for their communities, risking their lives and liberty to assist people made hungry and destitute by nearly two years of war. Written by journalist and volunteer Rawh Nasir, this piece zeroes in on mutual aid groups in the besieged capital, Khartoum, providing a detailed look at their communal kitchens. Volunteers told Nasir they have set up hundreds of kitchens across the capital and adjoining cities, preparing free daily meals for half a million people facing famine conditions. They called for more funding (especially from international donors who have been slow to support them) and demanded that the warring parties (the national army and the paramilitary-turned-rebel Rapid Support Forces) allow them to work safely. Mutual aid is key in most of the crises we cover, but the coordination and scale of the local effort in Sudan has been remarkable given the circumstances. Volunteers say their model of solidarity-based mutual aid offers a blueprint for a different type of politics in Sudan, and a very different type of humanitarian response too.
Peacekeeper sex abuse rife in Central African Republic as survivors stay silent
Chosen by Investigations Editor and Reporter Jacob Goldberg
Scroll down to the timeline embedded in this article and you’ll quickly see how UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic have – for more than a decade – been getting away with sexually exploiting and abusing the people they’re supposed to be protecting. The peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, as well as the UN as a whole, have acknowledged some failures. They fired the MINUSCA chief in 2015, and later (in 2021) they expelled all military units from Gabon and 60 peacekeepers (in 2023) from Tanzania – all over sexual abuse allegations. But these actions have done little to protect women and girls in CAR, or to compensate an untold number of survivors, including the 19 who spoke to reporter Barbara Debout for this investigation. That’s because many survivors simply don’t know how to report abuses; and because those who do know often choose not to because they’ve been threatened by their abusers, or they know that such reports rarely result in what they would consider justice. Out of 239 cases reported to MINUSCA since 2015, more than half are still pending. Out of the 61 cases that have been substantiated, fewer than half have resulted in jail time for the perpetrators. A paltry 0.03% of MINUSCA’s budget for 2023-2024 has been spent on assisting survivors, and local organisations picking up the slack are overwhelmed. As in the case of dozens of survivors of abuse by World Health Organization staff in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Ebola crisis, many survivors of MINUSCA’s abuses are left ostracised by their families, caring for children born from rape or exploitative relationships, or living with sexually transmitted diseases, with little or no help from the UN. See also MINUSCA’s response to this investigation, which downplayed the allegations.
How Burkina Faso’s military junta outlawed local peace talks with jihadists
Chosen by Africa Editor Philip Kleinfeld
We can’t name the journalist behind this reporting, such is the situation in Burkina Faso, where a military junta has been silencing critics and brutalising civilians it (usually wrongly) associates with jihadist groups, but it more than merits inclusion on this list. The story asks what became of the Burkinabé community leaders who had trailblazed an effort from 2020 onwards to negotiate with some of the country’s most senior jihadists. First documented in depth on these pages, the negotiations had breakthrough successes, from farmers being allowed to return to their fields to jihadists moderating their behaviour in small but valued ways. Communities made tough concessions – accepting strict sharia and breaking off ties with the army – but many felt it was a price worth paying. The profile of the mediators started growing, but everything then changed when army captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in late 2022. The junta leader began a “total war” against the insurgents, leaving no space for dialogue. Several community leaders involved in talks were arrested, while others were silenced. The rare interviews they gave to our reporter underline the cruelty of Traoré’s regime, and show how grassroots peace efforts can be held hostage by political currents regardless of how Sahelian communities – at the sharp end of the violence – actually view them.
Why humanitarians should care about tax justice
Chosen by Podcast Producer Melissa Fundira
In the ever-growing list of mandates the humanitarian sector commits itself to (on shrinking budgets no less), chances are, taxes don’t come to mind. "Taxation feels boring,” Hassan Damluji of Global Nation admitted on the Rethinking Humanitarian podcast, but “it couldn't be anything less. It's a huge amount of money. It's the grease of the wheels of a fair society. And so humanitarians need to be calling for that.” Every year, an estimated $500 billion is lost to tax abuse – enough to vaccinate the world against COVID-19 three times over, or provide basic sanitation to 34 million people. As Damluji and Alvin Mosioma of Open Society Foundations argued, the tax justice movement should be on humanitarians’ radar as a key tool to addressing not only budget woes, but also the systemic inequalities that prevent the global majority from addressing crises themselves. 2024 was a landmark year for tax justice advocates, as the African-led push for a UN tax Convention continued to reach new milestones despite pushback from OECD countries. The stakes are high: The next decade could see another $5 trillion lost to tax havens. Recouping trillions of dollars in tax revenue would be a game-changer for aid-dependent countries whose ability to weather crises is largely hampered by years of economic and political exploitation, making the growing tax justice movement of extra pertinence to humanitarians committed to decolonising aid.
Localisation doesn’t shift power. It deepens international dominance
Chosen by Senior Policy Editor Irwin Loy
What if the reform agenda meant to shift power is the problem, not the solution? That’s what researchers Rana B. Khoury and Emily K.M. Scott argue in this opinion piece questioning the machinery behind the humanitarian system’s long-stalled localisation agenda. Funding, capacity building, partnerships, and coordination are the gears of the localisation engine – and the levers used to maintain control. “International actors still have the power to let local actors into the humanitarian club – or to keep them out,” they write, drawing on four years of research and interviews on international and local responses in Syria. Their examples are no surprise to local humanitarian leaders across the globe: lopsided partnerships, the lion’s share of financial and physical risk, demands for never-ending training and workshops, tokenistic roles, subordination. There’s nothing novel in pointing out these inequalities. Rather, it’s the authors’ conclusion that provokes: “Trying harder to localise will likely just replicate the same results,” they write. “Trying something new is the greater challenge.”
So what is that new thing? That’s a work in progress, but many humanitarian leaders in the Global South aren’t waiting for an answer. They may participate in another panel on localisation, but they’re also raising funds outside the traditional donor base, creating their own partnership agreements, self-organising, and collaborating rather than competing (mostly). But for the international humanitarian sector, will 2025 bring change or more of the same? When money is on the table, can big aid groups be self-aware enough to sit back and support? Syria is an early test case, as its future unfolds minus Bashar al-Assad. There’s a long list of humanitarian needs. There’s also hard-won Syrian aid expertise, a burgeoning civil society movement at home and in the diaspora – and an international system waiting expectantly, positioning itself in the centre of the frame.
Haiti in-depth: Ten key questions as Kenyan police deploys to restore order
Chosen by Latin America Editor Daniela Mohor
As gangs joined forces to oust acting prime minister Ariel Henry in February and the Caribbean nation descended into even greater violence and disarray, many hoped the deployment of a Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission might help restore some semblance of order. However, if anything, the situation has only deteriorated since the first 400 police officers from Kenya were deployed last June, amid lingering questions over the wisdom of the UN-backed mission. Despite their desperation, many Haitians are still wary of foreign interventions after past abuses by international forces and aid groups. This in-depth briefing lays out the background to the deployment, before exploring a host of practical questions surrounding the MSS, including its funding, its mandate, and accountability for any abuses. The UN says more than 5,000 Haitians have been killed because of gang violence this year alone. Hundreds of thousands more have been displaced, while aid groups are increasingly unable to provide lifesaving assistance to the millions of Haitians – half the population – who need it. As political and aid leaders weigh support for a new UN peacekeeping mission in 2025, and with rape now being used systematically as a weapon of war by gangs, this is vital reading.
For Congolese displaced by the M23 war, host families offer a ‘heart of solidarity’
Chosen by Africa Editor Philip Kleinfeld
Often when people think of a mass displacement event, they imagine affected groups travelling to tented camps where big UN agencies give them tarpaulins and sacks of food. But that’s not an accurate picture of what actually happens in crisis spots around the world, where it is often the relatives and friends of displaced people who provide shelter and other lifesaving support. Take the case of the M23 rebel conflict, which has displaced more than 1.7 million people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aid groups and media reports have largely focused on the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people living in official camps mainly around the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. Yet an even greater number are being accommodated by host families, who have flung open their doors across North Kivu and are sharing scarce resources in trying times. In this editor’s pick, long-time TNH contributor Claude Sengeyna travelled to the town of Kanyabayonga, where tens of thousands of people had taken refuge following an M23 offensive earlier in the year. Sengeyna’s interviews underlined the solidarity motivating host families, but also laid bare the many challenges they face. His reporting – always impassioned and insightful – kickstarted a series exploring host families in different contexts, and served as yet another reminder that first responders are always local, however unheralded they may be.
