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.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life off the coast of Mahdia, Tunisia, where a boat carrying 70 migrants capsized shortly after departing the Tunisian village of Salakta. Forty people have died: nine women, 19 men, and 12 children under the age of five.
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.
