In 2025, the MENA region faced overlapping crises including conflict, displacement, economic collapse, disease outbreaks, and climate shocks, placing children at risk and disrupting access to services.
Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, hit southwestern Jamaica on 28 October as a Category 5 system—the worst hurricane to hit the area since 1988—before crossing into eastern Cuba as a Category 3 the following day.
As the extent of the damage becomes clearer, the impact continues to grow in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Granma — the two most severely hit by Hurricane Melissa.
More than 54,000 people remain evacuated, 7,500 of them in state centers.
• One week after Hurricane Melissa passed through, more than 50 communities in the eastern region remain cut off due to flooding and infrastructure damage, according to Civil Defense reports.
UNOCHA reports that over 9.3 million children are expected to suffer from high levels of acute malnutrition between June 2024 and May 2025 in Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.
