Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
IRC staff cuts point to sector-wide budget woes
The International Rescue Committee will make “significant” cuts to staff jobs – part of the fallout from a surprise budget deficit that has ballooned through 2024. Read our reporting on this here. IRC leadership blames rising costs, disappointing private fundraising, and poor internal budgeting practices (while many staff blame the organisation’s leaders and their priorities). IRC is far from the only aid group with budget woes. The sector-wide funding landscape is “grim”, and polycrises are spiralling. Other organisations have been busy restructuring – or making plans to – depending on how early their budget problems are spotted. But will these troubles force big aid organisations to change – re-focus, downsize, or become better partners, for example? Some have promised big changes when faced with a so-called “new normal” of tighter donor funding. For now, such language appears to be absent from internal IRC announcements.
Flood and famine warnings in South Sudan
Devastating flooding is expected once again in South Sudan in the coming months, with humanitarian groups saying they are in a race against time to save lives. The UN is expecting the worst flooding in the country in around 60 years; Médecins Sans Frontières has said it could be on a “scale unprecedented in the last century”; and Save the Children has said parts of the country will be driven to the brink of famine. Seasonal flooding is normal in South Sudan – its topography funnels in water from neighbouring countries – but the scale of the issue since 2019 has no recent comparison. Back-to-back disasters have deepened food insecurity, disrupted household production, spurred rural to urban migration, and pushed herders from the vast Sudd swamp into southern agricultural communities, leading to conflicts that political elites are accused of fanning. The next months now present a “horror scenario”, according to Save the Children, which foresees entire communities “marooned from assistance”.
10 years on, Yazidi genocide survivors continue the fight for justice
This week marks 10 years since the so-called Islamic State began what the UN has called a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis, tearing through their historic homeland of Sinjar in northern Iraq, killing more than 5,000 people, abducting an estimated 6,400 more, and forcibly displacing some 400,000. A decade on, survivors of the massacres, sexual violence, enslavement, and torture are still fighting for justice, accountability, and to find the estimated 2,600 Yazidis who have never been found, and some of that, horrifically, involves the exhumation of mass graves. This week, UNITAD, the UN mission to investigate the crimes of IS in Iraq, announced it had – alongside Iraqi authorities – finished excavating a mass grave in a sinkhole near Tel Afar, in the northwest of the country. The mission, which will be closing in September after relations with the Iraqi government soured, said it had recovered 158 bodies and 39 body parts. As this week’s story from Germany (home to the world’s largest Yazidi diaspora, including many survivors) shows, finding remains is just one step on the road to finding a missing family member. Read this for more about how survivors are still looking for loved ones, and this for what some community advocates say must be done now.
10 months of war in Gaza
As Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip enters its 11th month, more than 39,600 Palestinians have been killed – including over 15,000 children – and a further 10,000 are missing, according to health authorities in the enclave. Almost two in three buildings have been damaged or destroyed, and around 1.9 million people (90% of the population) have been forcibly displaced, many multiple times. Nine schools serving as shelters for displaced people have been hit by Israeli airstrikes since the end of July, killing dozens, including children. The Israeli military says the schools-turned-shelters were being used by Hamas to plan operations. Israel has also issued new evacuation orders affecting tens of thousands of people in multiple locations from Khan Younis in the south to Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the north. Reflecting a deterioration in humanitarian access, the UN said it recorded a surge in malnutrition among children in northern Gaza in July. While the US, Qatar, and Egypt are urging Israel and Hamas to resume ceasefire talks, the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran on 31 July was widely seen as damaging the prospects for a deal. Haniyeh has been replaced by Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Hamas’ 7 October attacks on Israel who is believed to be in hiding in Gaza. People in Lebanon and Israel are still bracing to see if the region is heading toward a wider war as they wait to see how Iran and Hezbollah will respond to Haniyeh’s assassination and the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut on 30 July.
What’s really driving DR Congo’s M23 insurgency?
The M23 rebel group had lain dormant for nearly a decade before dramatically bouncing back in late 2021. It has since seized big chunks of territory in North Kivu province, displacing nearly two million people and triggering massive regional upheaval. But what has been driving the insurgency? A new report by the Congolese think tank Ebuteli argues that the defining factors are largely external to DRC. Neighbouring Rwanda, a long-time backer of the M23 and its predecessor groups, reactivated its support to project influence that it felt it was losing in DRC to Uganda. Kampala had been invited by Kinshasa to build roads in the east and to combat the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group of Ugandan origins. Kigali felt left out and isolated. DRC’s government then worsened the crisis by outsourcing part of its counter-insurgency campaign to private security companies and abusive foreign and local armed groups. Read the Ebuteli report for more, and check out our own multifaceted reporting on the conflict and humanitarian fallout.
Regional leaders hold key to Venezuela election impasse
Two weeks after contested presidential elections, Venezuelans remain crippled by uncertainty and fear, as international leaders look for ways to untangle the messy aftermath. Early on 29 July, the National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed President Nicolás Maduro the winner, but it has still failed to release the tally sheets that could prove his victory. According to the opposition, which gained access to partial voting records, their candidate, Edmundo González, won by more than 60% – an estimate the Carter Center’s observation mission confirmed was in line with the data it had gathered. After thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest the declared result, Maduro’s regime turned to brutal repression to maintain its control, arresting more than 2,200 people, forcibly disappearing many others, and driving leading opposition figures into hiding. At least 24 deaths have been reported. While some countries (including the United States) recognised González as the winner, any chance of finding a path towards negotiations between the government and the opposition appears to rest on Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, which have been more cautious. On 7 August, their foreign affairs ministers issued a joint statement calling on the CNE to release the results “broken down by voting station” and on social and political actors to “exercise maximum caution and moderation in demonstrations”. For more on Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis read this analysis.
Weekend read
The government view on ending Somalia's humanitarian aid ‘trap’
Redirect funds to the government and focus on longer-term needs, a Somali official says. But at what cost?
And finally…
Are UK riots an example of the West in crisis?
Police in the United Kingdom are bracing for further racist violence after nearly two weeks of disturbances marked by far-right mobs attacking minority groups. Almost 600 people have been arrested during the worst outbreak of civil disorder the country has seen in more than a decade. Large anti-racist demonstrations also took place this week, in some cases vastly outnumbering those of far-right activists. Protesters gathered to defend immigration centres, mosques, and hotels housing asylum seekers, which have been targeted for attacks ever since false rumours began suggesting a Muslim immigrant had murdered three children in the northern town of Southport on 29 July (the accused is in fact a 17-year-old British citizen born in Britain to parents from Rwanda). The spread of disinformation has cast particular attention on the role of social media. X owner Elon Musk used the platform to spread conspiracy theories about the riots, including writing that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK and criticising British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But experts have also warned that a broader xenophobic environment has been developing in the UK for years, well beyond social media. The former Conservative government took a particularly hard line against immigration and asylum seekers, and some of its ministers repeated lies and conspiracy theories, echoed in parts of the media. The UK riots are only the latest example of crises rocking powerful Global North countries, throwing into further doubt their legitimacy to dominate and run the international aid system.
The New Humanitarian has long explored these kinds of issues. Here’s another chance to watch our June 2020 discussion: When the West falls into crisis.
