Mark Lowcock

A report issued on June 10 warned that over 350,000 people in Ethiopia's Tigray province are facing famine and over 2 million are just a step away, blaming the dire situation on the ongoing conflict that has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee, limited humanitarian access and the loss of harvests and income.

The United States announced on Feb. 12 it is revoking the designation of Yemen's Houthi rebels as a terrorist group effective Feb. 16, a reversal by the Biden administration welcomed by the United Nations and humanitarian groups who feared former president Donald Trump's actions would impede aid deliveries to the conflict-torn country facing the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Turkey is facilitating the supply of medical aid to northwestern Syria to cope with a potential outbreak of the novel coronavirus, U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on April 30. 

Turkey's foreign minister urged the international community on April 14 to aid Syrians amid diminishing relief efforts because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a virtual conference by the Atlantic Council in Turkey and Turkish Heritage Organization, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Turkey is the main source of aid and the pandemic is making efforts "more difficult" in Syria.

An estimated 170,000 of the 900,000 civilians forced from their homes in a massive wave of displacement in northwestern Syria are living out in the open, the U.N. said on Feb. 20.    

The largest displacement since the civil war in Syria broke out nearly nine years ago comes in the thick of winter, with temperatures often dipping below zero Celsius and snow covering some districts.  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is seeking to ensure a humanitarian catastrophe does not befall northwest Syria's Idlib province, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 18.

"He's fighting on Idlib," Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One. "He doesn't want people to be killed by the thousands, and hundreds of thousands."

The U.N.'s humanitarian affairs chief called on Feb. 17 for an immediate ceasefire to be implemented in northwest Syria to prevent "the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st Century."

At least ten civilians were killed when Russian warplanes hit residential areas in Idlib, a de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, overnight, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 30.         

The United Nations said Monday it was seeking $5 billion to provide humanitarian aid to some 20 million Yemenis next year -- or about 70 percent of the war-stricken country's population.

Each year, the world body needs an additional billion dollars, UN Under Secretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said. 

 Muslim Rohingya are still fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh and the United Nations is bracing for a possible "further exodus", the U.N. humanitarian aid chief said on Friday, quoted by Reuters.