Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Ukraine, Haiti, Brazil

Occupied Palestinian Territory

OCHA reports that intensifying hostilities and severe access constraints continue to impede aid operations at a time when hundreds of thousands of people need life-saving support.

Humanitarian workers face movement restrictions, including to border areas and repeated denials of access and delays. This includes planned missions to collect supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is located in an area where fighting continues to escalate.

We need Israeli authorities to swiftly facilitate access to Kerem Shalom so that aid workers can safely reach the crossing to pick up supplies. We also need safe and unimpeded passage to distribute that assistance at scale to people in need wherever they are.

Israel's responsibility to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance does not end at crossing points into Gaza, the Israeli military also has a responsibility to facilitate aid operations within Gaza.

The UN and humanitarian partners continue to meet growing needs, amid active hostilities that are putting the lives of aid workers at risk. Mounting an effective humanitarian operation in a war zone requires security assurances for aid workers. It also requires passable roads, adequate fuel, reliable communications, and sustained access.  

The World Food Programme (WFP) is calling for all border crossings and crossing points within Gaza to be open, as the Israeli incursion in Rafah continues to have a devastating impact on civilians and humanitarian operations.

WFP warns that there is little the agency can currently do in Rafah, with stocks very low and mobility severely restricted. Constrained access to southern parts of Gaza risks causing the same catastrophic levels of hunger witnessed in the north – and in central and southern Gaza, hunger levels are deteriorating fast.

WFP says that although some commercial goods are arriving in Gaza, people cannot afford the high prices. 

Despite significant challenges and dwindling supplies, the agency continues to distribute life-saving assistance – reaching 1 million people since 1 May.

Also this month, WFP and partners have reached some 60,000 children under five and nearly 23,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women with two-week supplies of supplements for the prevention of malnutrition. They are also scaling up nutrition services in Al Mawasi, Khan Younis, Deir al Balah and Gaza city. However, access constraints across Gaza continue to hamper these efforts, as well as the early detection of children and women requiring nutrition support.

Sudan

UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization warn that all indications point to a significant deterioration of the nutrition situation for children and mothers in Sudan.

A new analysis says the ongoing hostilities are worsening the drivers of child malnutrition. In Central Darfur, rates of acute malnutrition are estimated to be at 15.6 per cent among children under 5. In the ZamZam displacement camp in North Darfur, the figure is almost 30 per cent.

A screening carried out last month by Medecins Sans Frontieres in ZamZam camp found that more than a third of pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished, suggesting they are sacrificing their own needs to feed their children.

In the coming months, the situation for Sudan’s children and mothers will only worsen: The rainy season, which will cut off access to communities in need and raise rates of disease, starts in late June. 

Sudan is facing an ever-increasing risk of conflict-induced famine that will have catastrophic consequences, including the loss of life, especially among young children.

Meanwhile, the UN continues to be alarmed by the conflict in North Darfur. Families, including children and older people, are being prevented from leaving the capital city of El Fasher to seek safety. We are receiving deeply worrying reports that medical facilities, displacement camps, and critical civilian infrastructure have been severely damaged.

In a statement today, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, reminded all parties of their obligations to avoid using explosive weapons in populated areas and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Wars have rules that must be respected by all, no matter what.

Ukraine

Ukraine's Humanitarian Coordinator, Denise Brown, was in Kherson City today, in the south of the country, where she met with authorities and humanitarian partners to discuss winter preparedness. With energy infrastructures heavily impacted by the ongoing strikes in the region, it is important to make sure that Ukrainians can stay warm during the upcoming winter.

Strikes on energy facilities continue across the country and show no signs of abating and continue to cause widespread power outages.

Haiti

The UN continues to support people affected by recent violence, despite the volatile situation in Haiti.

This week, the World Food Programme has distributed more than 74,000 hot meals to more than 15,000 displaced people in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

Last week, some 2,400 children received mental health and psychosocial support from child protection specialists.

Humanitarian organizations have also provided information sessions on gender-based violence, protection issues, and sexual abuse to more than 4,000 people living in displacement sites.

Since 1 March, UN agencies, national and local partners and Haiti’s civil protection department have distributed nearly 13 million litres of water across displacement sites in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Brazil

In Brazil, the flooding situation remains critical, with water levels still high in many areas of the Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of the country and as winter weather conditions remain unstable.

According to national authorities, 2.3 million people have been affected by the floods. The death toll has risen to 169, with 45 people still missing. Preliminary assessments estimate that 200,000 houses have been affected, with nearly half of them destroyed. This has displaced at least 600,000 people, with approximately 48,000 still in shelters and many others staying with friends, family or in makeshift settlements.

State Civil Defense continues to coordinate response efforts with national responders, army forces, search and rescue teams, UN agencies and the NGO community. Volunteers, military personnel, civil servants, and humanitarian agencies are addressing the most urgent needs, which include food, water, health services, and shelter.

Under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator, Silvia Rucks, the UN team in Brazil and humanitarian partners are supporting the response by providing technical expertise and essential supplies, including hygiene and purifying water kits.

The UN Resident Coordinator's Office remains in close contact with the Government of Brazil and has also offered support for ongoing response efforts and early recovery planning from other specialized agencies, including OCHA, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the UN Development Programme and the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Office.