For the first time ever, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is putting out a crisis alert to its annual Emergency Watchlist report. The IRC is calling for urgent action in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, with specific concern for intensifying famine in Somalia that has been dangerously neglected by the international community. By the time a famine is officially declared later this year, it will be too late to save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Following the release of the IRC’s Emergency Watchlist 2024 in December last year, a list of 20 countries most at risk of humanitarian deterioration where Sudan was ranked number 1, the IRC has produced a mid-year Sudan Crisis Alert Report to show the trajectory of the world’s worst displacement crisis, as an update to the Watchlist report. Read our report here.

Five reasons why Afghanistan remains within the top 3 countries most at risk of worsening humanitarian crisis in the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist.