Posted on 15 May 2025
Welcome back to another week of maddening contradictions, well-intentioned press releases, and crises that somehow keep getting worse. If you thought last week was bad, don’t worry, 2025 still has plenty of lessons in despair, short-termism, and moral gymnastics.
Let’s start in Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis has entered a phase so catastrophic it now defies euphemism. Over 65,000 children are acutely malnourished, and the population faces widespread famine after ten weeks of near-total blockade. Aid, where it does exist, is being delivered under military coordination. A plan so loaded with legal and ethical red flags that UN officials have warned it could implicate humanitarians in war crimes. Nothing says “neutral and impartial” like delivering bread under the watchful eye of the same force that bombed the bakery (The New Humanitarian).
Meanwhile, in Sudan, famine is not just foreseeable, it’s strategy. Twenty-five million people (half the country) are caught in a humanitarian freefall. Cholera is spreading. Health systems have collapsed. Aid workers are evacuating. And both warring factions are being accused of blocking assistance and using starvation as a weapon of war. That’s not editorialising; it’s what the Wikipedia article says in plain, footnoted prose. The fact that it takes a publicly edited platform to consolidate these horrors is a scandal in itself.
But don’t worry, the UK is stepping in... to slash its aid budget. Having already cut ODA from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI, the government is now flirting with a further drop to 0.3% by 2027. There are caveats (of course), aid to Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine will be “protected” because it’s always easier to justify generosity when there’s a strategic narrative attached. Meanwhile, funding for climate resilience, feminist organisations, and education could be decimated. The Financial Times notes that legal challenges are underway, but the damage to the UK’s global credibility is already measurable in gigatonnes of cynicism.
And speaking of moral contortions, the UK’s relationship with Israel’s F-35 fighter jets is under legal scrutiny. Human rights groups are challenging the government’s continued export of components used in these aircraft, arguing that Britain is complicit in their deployment over Gaza. After all, if you’re going to suspend arms exports, why not exempt the one used in airstrikes on civilians? The Ministry of Defence invokes “national security”. The lawyers cite international humanitarian law. One of them is bound to win, eventually.
Over in eastern DRC, the M23 insurgency has displaced more than 700,000 people since January alone. Nearly a thousand deaths, thousands more injured, and a humanitarian system struggling to keep pace with the violence. It’s the kind of slow-motion disaster that rarely captures headlines, in part because the global calculus on empathy remains unchanged: no oil, no urgency. But The New Humanitarian is paying attention, and so should we.
Afghanistan remains trapped in a grim loop of need and neglect. Nearly 23 million people require assistance. Acute food insecurity is projected to affect nearly 15 million by the end of the year. Economic collapse, natural disasters, and decades of conflict have left a country both devastated and deprioritised. Concern Worldwide reminds us that just because it’s not trending doesn’t mean it’s not urgent.
Syria, too, continues to simmer beneath the surface of international indifference. Over 90% of Syrians now live in poverty. Seventeen million are displaced. The war may be frozen, but the suffering is not. The infrastructure is in ruins, the economy is dust, and the Business Insider Africa list of urgent crises barely does it justice.
And then there’s Myanmar - still burning, bleeding and largely still ignored. The junta’s grip continues to suffocate what remains of civil society, while humanitarian access is blocked or militarised. The IRC names it one of 2025’s top emergencies, but with global attention stretched thin, it barely registers in public discourse.
So there you have it. A week in which famine is deliberate, aid is conditional, and legal accountability is the exception rather than the rule. Humanitarian action, we are constantly reminded, is only as principled as the politics that allow it to function. Which is why staying loud, staying principled, and, yes, staying human isn’t just a slogan. It’s survival.
Until next week
Sam