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In the last fifty years, Panama has experienced an increase in extreme weather events, such as intense and prolonged rains, windstorms, floods, droughts, forest fires, landslides, tropical cyclones and the effects of El Niño and La Niña phenomena.Right now, Panama is facing a major drought. But in recent years there have also been severe storms — such as hurricanes Eta and Iota. Those storms flooded most of Soloy, an area that is part of the Ngäbe indigenous territory, and the Tierras Altas district in Chiriquí.This part of northwestern Panama is also one of the main agricultural areas in the country, and one of the most affected by these hurricanes, which have prompted the community to prepare for possible similar events.Since then, disaster risk management has become a fundamental task, driven by the active participation of indigenous community leaders such as Dalia, Eusebio and Wilfredo from Soloy, and the commitment of neighbours such as Doña María, who lives in Las Nubes, in Tierras Altas. These efforts enjoy the full support of local actors and in particular, the Panamanian Red Cross.At the COP Global Summit on climate change going on this week, the IFRC continues to emphasize that communities must be at the center of disaster and climate crisis preparedness. Here are the three main reasons why:1. It’s going to happen again: Preparing for recurrent disasters"One of the situations that occur during the winter season are the flooding of rivers, because we have a large number of rivers in the community; and also landslides, which leave houses and roads affected", says Eusebio Bejarano, a leader in the community of Soloy.That is why the Panamanian Red Cross worked alongside the community as it prepared an assessment and established Community Response Brigades. In addition, they have begun using something called the Nexus Environmental Assessment Tool, which helps to quickly identify environmental concerns before designing longer-term emergency or recovery interventions."It is an environmental assessment tool that has allowed us to understand the context of the activities carried out by the community and, above all, how we can work to protect the livelihoods of this community, which is rural and depends heavily on subsistence agriculture", explains Daniel González, head of risk management for the Panamanian Red Cross.At the family and individual level, actions can also be taken to protect the homes of people like Doña María, who lives near the river bank and has worked on a family evacuation plan. She is now prepared to act in case of flooding.2. It’s local people who are first to respond: Strengthening community response capacitiesPart of the preparedness process requires communities to strengthen their learning, technical and leadership capacities to better adapt to the crisis situations. This is critical because community organizations are the first to respond when disasters occur and often have access to areas where international actors do not.The presence of these community groups before, during and after crises means they can more readily respond while also fostering long-term preparedness and recovery."We must prepare ourselves in First Aid, the authorities must be trained, the teaching staff and the community,” says Dalia, the leader of the Psychosocial Support Brigade in Soloy. “The Red Cross has brought different types of training, in which young people have participated, but we need more communities and more young people to get involved."The implementation of educational projects, such as blue schools, which incorporate learning about water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), recycling and school gardens, are a sample of the actions that the communities are carrying out with the support of the Panamanian Red Cross."We have trained the Fire Fighting Brigade, the First Aid Brigade; but we have also worked on strengthening resilience in three schools in Alto Bonito, Boca de Remedio and Soloy,” says Daniel González, head of risk management of the Panamanian Red Cross. “In addition, we have provided them with first aid kits and rigid boards, along with training for teachers and the educational community."3. Communities know what’s at stake: Strengthening community resilienceCommunities are the heart of climate-crisis preparedness because they know what’s at stake — their environment and the survival of their way of life. In the face of the climate crisis and increasingly uncertain scenarios, this is why the Red Cross works with communities to strengthen local resilience to climate-related shocks."We have worked hand-in-hand with the Red Cross, organizing and preparing for situations that have been occurring with the climate crisis, focusing a lot on the community, working with leadership, working with authorities and visiting communities", says Eusebio Bejarano.Community resilience enables communities to prepare for disasters and create a safe, healthy and prosperous future. To do this, communities must record information on all relevant hazards and their causes, health threats, hazards, conflict, violence, climate crisis, environmental degradation. Only then will they be able to set priorities together and decide how best to address them.Another leader from Soloy, Wilfredo highlights the importance of promoting empathy and collective care and stresses the importance of caring for nature. He emphasizes that the mountains and rivers are fundamental for community life. The Ngäbe indigenous population has also brought to the table the need to take cultural elements such as language into account when planning preparedness actions.A resilient community is one that is experienced, healthy and able to meet its basic needs. It’s a community that has economic opportunities, well-maintained and accessible infrastructure and services, and can manage its natural assets in harmony with the environment. And it’s a community that can focus on moving forward, and on things that bring joy and meaning, rather than continually recovering from the sudden shocks of the climate crisis.Disaster preparedness and community resilience actions are also being carried out in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador, thanks to the Programmatic Partnership between the IFRC network and the European Union, which provides strategic, flexible, long-term and predictable funding, so that National Societies can act before an emergency occurs.
Planting, watering, weeding, harvesting and feeding the animals have long been part of the life at the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf (CCCD) in Manchester, Jamaica. On any given day, staff and students at the school’s Knockpatrick Campus might be harvesting beans, squash or vegetables as part of the educational nutritional and livelihoods program.
But when the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic led to dwindling enterprise earnings and donations to the school, the administration placed even more focus on using their land to assist in producing some of their internal food demands. In the meantime, however, there were other challenges: persistent drought meant that there simply wasn’t enough water to adequately irrigate the campus’ greenhouse and open field crops
That’s when the school turned to “climate-smart” agriculture. With support from the Jamaica Red Cross (JRC), the Knockpatrick campus now uses solar powered pumps to help harvest and store water for its greenhouse and farm. The CCCD had previously installed a water catchment system in the 1960s, but the system has been in a state of disrepair.
Tyreke Lewis, one of 130 students who lives at the 130-acre Knockpatrick campus, says the improvements have turned things around for the better. “The school will also be able to produce more goods to be sold to the community and other stakeholders,” he says. “The additional income will help us to pay our bills and other expenses. It will allow us to develop our skills to become more self-reliant for the future.”
An island going dry
The Knockpatrick Campus is not alone in facing the impacts of climate change. According to the Meteorological Services of Jamaica, all parishes received below normal rainfall in December 2022.
Combined with COVID-19, changes in the climate have resulted in major humanitarian consequences, with the poorest and most vulnerable feeling the brunt of its effects through loss of life, economic setbacks and livelihood loss.
As part of its plans to help people affected by the climate crises and the socio-economic effects of COVID-19, the JRC connected to the CCCD through the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA).
“In our discussions with the CCCD, we realized that the drought and water scarcity that existed, coupled with the reduced income generation due to COVID-19, compounded the food crisis, pushing them to produce more for themselves,” said Leiska Powell, JRC project manager. “But to do that, they needed assistance to manage their water for improved and increased production. We wanted to find a way to help them do this.”
Climate-smart farming
To get things done, the JRC contracted a local company that provides alternate energy solutions to install the solar water pump and provided four, 1,000-gallon water tanks to help facilitate additional water storage.
The initiative involved building a ramp to house the four water tanks and installing a solar water pump to move the water from the current catchment tank to the new storage drums to supply the greenhouse with water.
John Meeks, social enterprise officer at the CCCD, noted that this partnership with the Red Cross marks the first step in their strategic bid to develop a climate-resilient and climate-smart agricultural programme.
“Without irrigation, we can’t plant or raise animals,” he says. “This initiative, therefore, provides a key step in the right direction and will allow us to expand our crop production from 2-3 acres to up to 10 acres, because we now have the irrigation system in place.”
The next phase of the initiative will see the JRC collaborating with RADA to offer climate smart agriculture training to students and staff of the CCCD to further build their capacity in sustainable agriculture and water management. There are also plans to expand the climate smart agriculture initiative to the other CCCD campuses, once additional funding is secured.
The partnership also now forms a central part of activities undertaken through the COVID-19 climate-smart livelihoods recovery initiative, conducted by the JRC and supported by the IFRC, added Keisha Sandy, IFRC technical officer for climate and environmental sustainability for the Caribbean.
“The Red Cross network is committed to helping people in communities make the transition from immediate recovery to the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19, to long-term climate smart livelihood solutions geared towards increasing the sustained resilience of the communities we serve,” Sandy says.
Only five years ago, roughly 99 per cent of disaster response operations carried out by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in the Americas were led by men.Why such a disparity? In large part, it was because many of the women who could participate in training and operations necessary to hold those positions had children, elderly or disabled people in their care. This limited their availability to participate in emergency response.That is why in 2020, the IFRC and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) launched the Equity and Leadership initiative with a clear objective: to increase the number of women in management and humanitarian leadership positions in the Americas.The project started as an opportunity to build a peer-to-peer network in which women could share and grow together, both in leadership positions and at the local level. Along the years, women involved in the programme have gone through a leadership journey — which included management training and mentorship — through which they expanded their competencies to lead disaster and emergency operations."Perhaps there are few women leading humanitarian operations due to a lack of opportunities and motivation,” said Karla Vogt, a Bolivian Red Cross volunteer who participated in the initiative. “I have been a Red Cross volunteer for 11 years and I feel that there is still a need to promote internal gender equity policies.”The program, she added, gave women the opportunity to “generate spaces to show the best we have, to be an example for other women and to exercise our capabilities, which are often made invisible for gender reasons."The investment pays offThe results have been impressive. As a result of this partnership, the number of women leading humanitarian operations in the Americas increased in 2020 to 48 percent and then to 50 per cent in 2021. The IFRC responses to hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020, the eruption of La Soufrière volcano in April 2021, the earthquake in Haiti in 2021 were also led by women.Vogt herself was deployed in 2021 as field coordinator of the flood response operation in Bocas del Toro, Panama. That same year, the operation in response to the migration crisis in Darien, Panama, was also led by a woman.But it doesn’t stop there. The regional management of the COVID-19 response operation, as well as the pandemic response in Peru, Argentina and Central America were in the hands of female experts in humanitarian action, a substantial improvement over the 2019 figures."The heart of La Soufrière volcano operation was and continues to be the women who gave and continue to give their being to the emergency response,”said Rhea Pierre, disaster preparedness and climate-crisis coordinator for IFRC in the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean. Pierre was deployed in 2021 as disaster manager as part of the response to the eruption of the La Soufrière volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.“I believe that programs such as this one have highlighted the vital role we play in such emergency contexts. In my case, it pushed me out of my comfort zone and showed me that yes, I can make it, I can be an actor in this space and contribute positively to improving people's lives."In 2022, 48 percent of operations were led by women, but in 2023, this number dropped to 30 percent, an indication that the work of gender equity is something that is continually managed, not fixed with one fell swoop. This is one reason the America’s region continually charts the progress of gender equity in its emergency response via a regularly updated online website.While the initiative has led to an increase in the number of women trained, deployed and occupying leadership positions in humanitarian operations in the region, it is still necessary to advance the design, implementation and standardization of measures that more fully address the needs related to their domestic workloads.The work continuesDozens of women from Red Cross Societies in the region have also participated in training and mentoring programs and have contributed to the co-creation of a training and skills program."To women starting their humanitarian careers, I say: we need you,”says Diana Oviedo, IFRC Operations Coordinator in Central America who was also designated as IFRC's Central America COVID-19 Pandemic Response Coordinator. ”We need your voice, your vision of the world, your contributions to reduce the suffering of those who need it most.“You are enough, your experience, training and human qualities are enough, do not doubt yourself. Don't be afraid to give your opinion, whether you are in a leadership position or not. We are in this humanitarian world because we are united by a common feeling of humanity, trust your team, listen to the solutions that other people offer you, get close to other women who inspire you and learn from their experiences".
Geneva/Beirut, 26 March 2024Al-Amal Hospital and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) headquarters in Khan Yunis has ceased functioning. For over 40 days, sustained hostilities in and around Al-Amal Hospital, have placed the lives of critical patients, injured civilians, medical staff, and PRCS teams in grave danger, transforming the hospital into a battleground when it should be a sanctuary.All PRCS staff and hundreds of critically injured and displaced people seeking refuge and treatment within its complex were forced to evacuate. These same people, already bearing the scars of displacement, face the daunting task of finding new shelters amidst the uncertainty.With the PRCS being a major provider of healthcare services in the Gaza Strip, the forced closures of both its operational hospitals, Al-Quds and now Al-Amal, have now rendered its critical healthcare services non-functional. The health services in northern Gaza have been largely destroyed, and the southern Gaza Strip’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse. The cessation of operations in most northern hospitals, due to acute fuel shortages, absence of medicines, and medical equipment, coupled with the lack of safe access, has been catastrophic. The forced closure of Al-Amal Hospital, one of the few remaining medical facilities in the south, has profound implications, leaving countless lives at risk.Marked clearly with the red crescent emblem, Al-Amal Hospital is protected under International Humanitarian Law. The Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal emblems represent neutrality and impartial humanitarian assistance, promising protection in times of conflict and disaster.We call on all parties to adhere to their obligations under International Humanitarian Law, ensuring the protection of civilians, healthcare workers, and facilities. We call for rapid and unimpeded passage for humanitarian aid, and safe and unhindered access for humanitarian workers.The IFRC stands in solidarity with the PRCS, advocating for the protection of all medical facilities and personnel. We honor the courage of PRCS volunteers and paramedics, many of whom have faced personal loss or detention, yet remain unwavering in their selfless response to those in need. Since the beginning of the conflict, we have lost 18 members of our network: 15 from PRCS and three from Magen David Adom. Any attack on healthcare workers, ambulances, and medical facilities is unacceptable.In the midst of conflict, access to healthcare is not just a necessity—it is a matter of life and death. The people of Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering; healthcare remains one of their last bastions of hope.For more information, contact: [email protected] Beirut:Mey Alsayegh: +961 3 229 352In Geneva:Mrinalini Santhanam: +41 76 381 50 06Andrew Thomas: +41 76 367 65 87
Disasters and emergencies take an immense toll not only on people’s physical health, but on their mental health and wellbeing too. Addressing global mental health and psychosocial needs is a vital part of the IFRC’s work supporting healthy communities.
Everyone, everywhere should have access to good health care and the basic ingredients to a healthy life. The theme of World Health Day in 2024 is 'My Health, My Right', and we could not agree more. Access to health care is a basic human right. My health, my right also means a healthy environment, safe food and water, and strong community readiness for emergencies and epidemics. Sadly, access to those basic ingredients are under threat, due to conflict, climate events, natural calamity and extreme poverty. We invite you to join our ongoing efforts to help people around the world access this most basic of human rights.
In Kazakhstan, winter weather can be extremely harsh, with temperatures plummeting to -40 C at night. This presents a challenge for all people, but especially for some of the most vulnerable groups: homeless, lonely older people, people with disabilities and single parent households."My husband and our two sons have died and my relatives are living far away, therefore now I am all alone in this world,” one 81-year-old woman told a Red Crescent team. “I’m grateful to the Red Crescent volunteers for bringing me soup, buns and pilaf – I’ll eat it with pleasure and save some for tomorrow.”Drivers and passengers who get stuck on the road may also find themselves in a difficult situation.Whenever extreme cold hits, the Red Crescent of Kazakhstan is ready to support people in need thanks to a system the National Society developed that allows it to mobilise as soon as a severe cold wave is predicted.Getting ahead of the cold wavesThrough the activation of the Simplified Early Action Protocol for Cold Waves, the Red Crescent is receiving CHF 68,000 from the IFRC's Disaster Response Emergency Fund (IFRC-DREF). They money is used to fund anticipatory actions supporting 2,000 people in the worst-affected regions and reach a further 80,000 with awareness-raising activities.The protocol was triggered by a cold wave on 11 December, when the national weather forecast service predicted temperatures to go below -40 degrees in the north of Kazakhstan."This simplified early action protocol allows us to support people surviving extreme cold in the most difficult conditions, and to do it quickly," said Lena Kistaubayeva, director of the Emergency Situations Department at the Red Crescent of Kazakhstan."Distributing warm clothes from prepositioned stocks and arranging hot meals for homeless people and older people living alone are the key activities at the moment,” she added. “We keep monitoring weather forecasts, so as to respond in a timely manner and address further needs in this and other target regions of the country, through our local branches." Hot meals, clothes and blanketsThroughout the winter, Red Crescent teams have been helping homeless people reach warm shelters and provide them with hot meals and basic items such as winter clothes, shoes and blankets. Volunteers are also providing First Aid at warm-up shelters."Since I was a child, I have been spending most of my time on the street and taking care of myself,” said a 54-year-old homeless man. “I ended up with bad company and spent ten years in prison, but at least I had food and a bed there. Now I’m alone again and I don’t know where to go. Volunteers will take me to an accommodation centre and helpe me with the registration.”IFRC is a lead in the Early Warnings For All Initiative, which will provide early warnings to people across the globe by 2027. Learn more.
Geneva/Brussels - 10 April 2024More than two years of armed conflict - with no end in sight - is leading to a sense of ‘futurelessness’ for displaced people from Ukraine, experts said at a conference in Brussels. Despite the incredible resilience people have been showing, this experience is likely to have a long-term impact on their mental health if not addressed in time.The conference was organised by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as part of aEuropean Union-funded EU4Health project, which aims to provide mental health and psychosocial support services for people affected by the ongoing conflict. Speakers included Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, and Xavier Castellanos Mosquera, Under Secretary General for the IFRC. Participants discussed the mental health needs of those forced to leave their homes, based on a recent survey conducted by the IFRC. Findings include:83% of people affected by the conflict said they or family members had faced stressful or traumatic events. Two-thirds said displacement had had a negative impact on them. Of those surveyed, 79% were outside Ukraine, 21% inside.30% of displaced Ukrainians had sought some form of psychological support since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, which reveals a demand for mental health services.Ganna Goloktionova, Technical Advisor in the IFRC’s Psychosocial Centre, said that uncertainty about the future was the top source of stress for Ukrainians. She emphasised that the combined toll of ongoing armed conflict, insecurity through displacement, the destruction of family structures, the temporary nature of protection, and financial stresses all negatively contribute to displaced Ukrainians’ mental health.“Many Ukrainians can’t see a future.” she said. “This state of ‘futurelessness’ is having a devastating impact on the mental health of Ukrainians, both those in Ukraine and refugees in countries elsewhere.”Xavier Castellanos Mosquera, IFRC Under Secretary General said:“Intervention at the right time can help and, in the long term, give people their futures back. Psychosocial support programmes are some of the least expensive activities in humanitarian responses. But they can have a priceless impact.”Birgitte Bischoff Ebbesen, IFRC Regional Director for Europe said:“We know how vital mental health interventions can be, particularly when provided early. Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers from Ukraine and host communities build the necessary trust that helps us in addressing the stigma that still, sadly, surrounds mental health.”Across Europe, 37 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies are providing mental health and psychosocial support services and have reached 1.2 million people.BackgroundThere is an EU-funded collaboration between the IFRC, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Food Safety, and National Red Cross Societies in Ukraine and 24 European countries to provide psychosocial support to people from Ukraine since May 2022. This programme has supported more than 200,000 affected people and has seen 11,000 health professionals and volunteers trained in mental health and psychosocial support.Listen to IFRC’s People in the Red Vest podcast episode:Nataliia Korniienko: Helping her fellow refugees cope with the stresses of conflict, migration and starting over | IFRCFor further details or interview requests contactGeneva – Andrew Thomas +41 763676587Brussels – Zsofia Varga +36 70 508 5718
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) offers a wealth of learning opportunities and resources to our National Societies, volunteers, partners and the general public. Discover them below.
The recent deadly heatwave in the Sahel and West Africa with temperatures above 45°C would not have been possible without human-caused climate change, according to rapid analysis by an international team of leading climate scientists from theWorld Weather Attributiongroup.In late March and early this April, extreme heat impacted countries in the Sahel and West Africa. The hottest temperature occurred on April 3, when Mali recorded 48.5°C. In Bamako, the Gabriel-Toure Hospital announced a surge in excess deaths, with 102 deaths over the first four days of April.Around half were over the age of 60 and the hospital reports that heat likely played a role in many of the deaths. A lack of data in the countries affected makes it impossible to know how many people were killed, however it’s likely there were hundreds or possibly thousands of other heat-related deaths.“Year-round heat is part of life in the Sahel and regions of West Africa," said Kiswendsida Guigma, Climate Scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso. "However, the extreme temperatures were unprecedented in many places and the surge in excess deaths reported by the Gabriel-Toure Hospital in Mali highlighted just how dangerous the heat was.“For some, a heatwave being 1.4 or 1.5°C hotter because of climate change might not sound like a big increase. But this additional heat would have been the difference between life and death for many people.”Climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, and other human activities, is making heatwaves more frequent, longer and hotter around the world. To quantify the effect of human-caused warming on the extreme temperatures in the Sahel and West Africa, scientists analysed weather data and climate models to compare how these types of events have changed between today’s climate, with approximately 1.2°C of global warming, and the cooler pre-industrial climate using peer-reviewed methods.The analysis looked at the five-day average of maximum daily temperatures in two areas: one that includes southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso, where the heat was most extreme, and a larger area including regions of Niger, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea, where temperatures were widely above 40°C.To investigate hot night time temperatures, which can be dangerous when the human body cannot rest and recover, the researchers also analysed the five-day average of minimum temperatures for the Mali and Burkina Faso region.The scientists found that both the daytime and nighttime heatwaves, across both regions, would have been impossible if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, and with other activities like deforestation. Climate change made the maximum temperatures 1.5°C hotter and the nighttime temperatures 2°C hotter for the Burkina Faso and Mali region, and the five-day daytime temperatures for the wider region 1.4°C hotter.A heatwave like the recent one is still relatively rare, even in today’s climate with 1.2°C of warming, the researchers found. Across the wider West Africa region, similarly high daytime temperatures can be expected about once every 30 years. However, daytime temperatures like those experienced in Mali and Burkina Faso, where heat-related fatalities were reported, are expected around once in every 200 years.More common, more dangerousBut events like these will become much more common, and even more dangerous, unless the world moves away from fossil fuels and countries rapidly reduce emissions to net zero. If global warming reaches 2°C, as is expected to occur in the 2040s or 2050s unless emissions are rapidly halted, similar events will occur 10 times more frequently.The researchers also quantified the possible influence of El Niño on the heat, but found that its effect was not significant when compared with the influence of human-caused climate change.The study highlights factors that worsened the impacts of the heat across the region. The heat occurred at the end of Ramadan when many Muslim people fast during the day. The Sahel region has a large Muslim population and while high temperatures are common in April, the researchers say the relentless day and nighttime heat would have been overwhelming for many people who were abstaining from food and water.They also note that conflict, poverty, limited access to safe drinking water, rapid urbanisation and strained health systems likely worsened the impacts.Heat action plans that set out emergency responses to dangerous heat are extremely effective at reducing heat-related deaths during heatwaves. However, neither Burkina Faso or Mali have one in place. Given the increasing risk of dangerous heat in the Sahel and West Africa, the researchers say developing heat action plans will help to save lives and lessen the burden of extreme heat on health systems.Finally, the researchers say the Gabriel-Toure Hospital’s rapid reporting of heat-related deaths was a valuable illustration of the dangers of extreme heat that would have likely acted as an effective warning for people in the region.The study was conducted by 19 researchers as part of the World Weather Attribution group, including scientists from universities, organisations and meteorological agencies in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa, The Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.For further information, media may contact:Andrew Thomas, IFRC Senior Media Officer, Media RelationsMob: +41 76 367 6587
We, the members of the Governing Board of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), are gravely concerned about the escalating human toll of violence and conflict around the world. Today, we call on all parties to ensure the safety and protection of humanitarian workers and civilians and allow unhindered access for humanitarian organizations to deliver essential assistance.Amid tremendously challenging circumstances, including armed conflicts and neglected global crises, 2023 was one of the deadliest years for humanitarian aid workers ever recorded, with over 400 lives lost. In the first four months of 2024, we have seen a continually grim trajectory of humanitarian aid workers killed while working in service to others.Over the past six months, National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have lost 30 dedicated volunteers and staff members fromAlgeria, Ethiopia,Iran, Israel, Libya, Palestine and Sudan. We mourn these losses and honor their service.They were not just colleagues but beloved family members and friends, tragically killed while trying to help others. This is unacceptable according to international humanitarian law, our Fundamental Principles and for humanity as a whole.It is in this context that we reiterate our call that National Red Cross and Red Crescent Society volunteers and staff are granted safe and unhindered access and space to provide humanitarian services according to our Fundamental Principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence.The imperative to safeguard civilians extends to vital institutions, including hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure. These institutions must be shielded from harm to maintain stability, provide critical services, and offer hope during the darkest hours of crisis and conflict.National Red Cross and Red Crescent Society volunteers and staff, who tirelessly provide crucial aid and medical care, need safety to carry out their lifesaving work. Their protection without impediment is paramount.We mourn the loss of our dedicated personnel. At the same time, we use this moment to hold theirunwavering commitment as a beacon of humanity's highest ideals. As IFRCGoverning Board members, we unite in urging political solutions to safeguard civilians, and to ensurethe protection of humanitarian aid workers for a path towards lasting peace and stability.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) confirms the killing of Hossam El-Din Awad Mohamed Khalifa, a volunteer from the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, in Tuti Island, Khartoum State, on 10 April while on duty. Reports indicate that Hossam was fatally shot while he and other volunteers were providing first aid services during the Eid prayer. Eight others were injured in the incident.The IFRC strongly condemns this violence and asserts that healthcare workers must be respected and protected under all circumstances. We extend our deepest condolences to Hossam’s family and colleagues.Since the beginning of the year, nineteen IFRC network members have died while performing their vital humanitarian duties. This violence must end. They are #NotATarget.
“I wake up early at seven in the morning to attend to the family's needs, then head to the nearby market, which is one kilometer away. I search for something to feed my hungry children.”This is how a typical day starts for Youssef Khoder, a Palestine Red Crescent volunteer from northern Gaza. Youssef comes from a family of volunteers. His mother is an obstetrics nurse, his brother Mahmoud and Ibrahim are also both nurses.“We have been working at the PRCS medical point in Jabalia since its establishment,” he says. “We were displaced and had to move to a shelter center, but now the situation has changed, and we have returned to our homes.”After getting food at the market, Youssef and his wife start a fire to prepare food for their young children. The eldest daughter, Ayloul, is 6 years old. Mohammed is 4, and Ghaith is 2. Then Youssef is off to meet his brothers at the medical point in Jabalia.“We walk 2 kilometers back and forth every day to reach the medical point where we volunteer,” he says. “We carry out our work because it is our humanitarian duty, continuing to serve our people in northern Gaza.”A vital point for community health amid conflictThe medical point consists of a large tent, inside which there are about a dozen rolling hospital gurneys or beds. The medical post in Jabalia, in the Northern Gaza Strip, has remained operational and provided medical and health services to thousands of affected people even when key hospitals went out of service; it continues to provide services despite the shortage of medicine.While his brothers attend to patients, Youssef takes photos as part of his responsibilities documenting the work of his Palestine Red Crescent colleagues. This is important role in documenting the humanitarian needs as well as the reporting to the world what the Red Crescent is doing to try and address those needs.This is not as easy as it may seem. With power outages and damaged communications infrastructure, the simple act of sending the photographs to headquarters is not so simple."After the afternoon prayer, I walk one kilometer to a high-altitude location so I can catch a signal and gain internet access. I spend half an hour sending files to the administration before returning to the medical point. We spend an hour with colleagues before heading back, sometimes stopping by the market to get some food for suhoor and for the next day. However, food is scarce and the prices are very high."During Ramadan, all this was done while fasting from sun up to sun down. After work, they would return home before breaking their fast (iftar). "My family and I sit together. I break my fast with them, pray the Maghrib prayer, have tea, and then return to the medical point on foot. I work for a few hours before coming home late.Concerning food scarcity, it’s like we have been fasting for 6 months, so it’s not just during Ramadan.We continue to work with even greater determination than before, and we pray that we remain able to serve the people, and that Gaza’s dark days will soon pass.”
Humanly Possible. This is theme of World Immunization Week 2024. Humanly Possible is a testament to what can be achieve when humanity works together for a better future. Since the latter half of the 20th Century, coordinated, global immunization campaigns have saved millions of lives. Humanly Possible also reflects our continued commitment to ensure that every community has access to the vaccines and information they need for a healthy future, free from unnecessary illnesses and deaths.
Communicable diseases are diseases that spread from person to person or from animals to humans. Learn about various communicable diseases below and about what the IFRC and our National Societies do to keep communities around the world healthy.