The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned of an escalating public health crisis in Sudan, as conflict and mass displacement continue to drive a surge in disease, particularly cholera and malaria.
In a report released Wednesday, UNICEF highlighted the growing threat of cholera in the war-torn country, with more than 7,700 cases and 185 associated deaths reported in Khartoum State alone since January 2025. Alarmingly, over 1,000 cases have affected children under the age of five.
Since the onset of conflict in April 2023, three million people have been forced to flee their homes, displaced internally and across the region.
Returning to homes without water
While improved access to parts of Khartoum State has enabled more than 34,000 people to return since January, many are coming back to homes that have been severely damaged and lack access to basic water and sanitation services.
Recent attacks on power infrastructure in Khartoum State have compounded the crisis, disrupting water supplies and forcing families to collect water from unsafe, contaminated sources.
This significantly increases the risk of cholera, particularly in densely populated areas such as displacement camps.
UNICEF has implemented a multi-pronged approach to the crisis, including distributing household water treatment chemicals, delivering over 1.6 million oral cholera vaccines, supplying cholera treatment kits, and more.
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“Each day, more children are exposed to this double threat of cholera and malnutrition, but both are preventable and treatable, if we can reach children in time,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative for Sudan.
Malaria and new prevention efforts
Also on Wednesday, UNICEF launched a partnership with the Sudanese government’s health ministry and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to distribute nearly 15.6 million insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent the spread of malaria among vulnerable families across Sudan, along with 500,000 additional nets for antenatal and immunization facilities.
The campaign aims to protect 28 million Sudanese across 14 states.
As with cholera, ongoing conflict and displacement have created conditions conducive to the spread of malaria. Overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions, coupled with the approaching rainy season, present a serious health risk to millions, particularly those returning to damaged communities.
In addition, the initiative aims to bolster the availability of anti-malarial medications, rapid diagnostic tests, and investments in strengthening the healthcare system.
Critical medical supplies reach West Darfur
In a more positive development, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Tuesday that El Geneina Hospital in West Darfur has received eight tonnes of medical supplies for nutrition, non-communicable diseases and mental health.
The delivery, supported by the World Bank Africa, the Share Project, and the European Union, is expected to sustain the hospital’s operations for six months, providing vital support to one of the regions hardest hit by the multiple escalating crises.
In this 2020 photograph, a woman doctor in full protective gear is seen alongside volunteer nurses who cared for COVID-19 patients at a community hospital in the Philippines.
The 78th World Health Assembly concluded Tuesday in Geneva, marking several major milestones in global health. Delegates adopted the world’s first pandemic agreement and approved a significant boost in core funding for the World Health Organization (WHO).
In addition, the Assembly endorsed a wide range of measures to promote health equity, reduce air pollution, and strengthen protections for vulnerable populations.
“The words ‘historic’ and ‘landmark’ are overused, but they are perfectly apt to describe this year’s World Health Assembly,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the Assembly’s closing, ending nine days of intense debate and decisions.
The centrepiece of the Assembly’s outcomes was the WHO Pandemic Agreement, adopted on 20 May after more than three years of negotiations.
The agreement, seen as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve global preparedness and response to future pandemics, aims to strengthen international coordination, enhance equity in access to medical tools and ensure that no country is left behind in future health crises.
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A key next step will be consultations on access to pathogen and benefit-sharing, which seeks to guarantee equitable sharing of medical countermeasures derived from pathogens.
Boost for WHO budget
Another major outcome was the approval of a 20 per cent increase in assessed contributions – the core, mandatory funding from Member States that underpins WHO’s work.
By 2030-2031, these contributions will cover 50 per cent of the agency’s core budget, a crucial step toward financial sustainability.
Health leaders also pledged at least $210 million to WHO’s ongoing Investment Round, adding to the $1.7 billion already raised and expanding the agency’s donor base.
A healthier world
The Assembly also delivered a sweeping slate of resolutions addressing a wide range of health challenges.
For the first time, nations adopted global resolutions on lung and kidney health, aligning with the growing recognition of noncommunicable diseases as a global priority.
Countries also set an ambitious new target to halve the health impacts of air pollution by 2040 and in an innovative move, adopted a resolution on social connection, acknowledging mounting evidence linking social isolation to poor health outcomes.
They also endorsed measures to combat the digital marketing of formula milk and baby foods, and addressed rare diseases, a lead-free future and the eradication of Guinea worm disease.
Delegates meeting in a committee at the 78th World Health Assembly.
History is made
In conclusion, Director-General Tedros urged countries to continue the momentum beyond the Assembly, highlighting the spirit of cooperation and commitment to health for all.
“You, the nations of the world, made history,” he said.
“Yes, there is conflict in our world, but you have shown that there is also cooperation. Yes, there is inequity, but you have shown a commitment to equity. Yes, there is disease, but you have shown a commitment to health – health for all.”
For most nicotine users today, their first experience with the drug is a flavoured product – making it easier, and more appealing, to try.
This is especially true among youth users: it’s one of the main reasons young people experiment with tobacco or nicotine products in the first place, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
Flavoured nicotine and tobacco products are inherently addictive and toxic – often more so than regular tobacco. Flavours increase usage, make quitting harder, and have been linked to serious lung diseases, WHO maintains.
Despite decades of progress in tobacco control, flavoured products are luring a new generation into addiction and contributing to eight million tobacco-related deaths each year.
Youth-oriented marketing
Nicotine products are often marketed directly toward young people through bright and colourful packaging featuring sweet and fruity flavour descriptors.
Research shows that this type of advertising can trigger reward centres in adolescent brains and weaken the impact of health warnings.
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Young people also report a growing presence of flavoured nicotine product marketing across all social media platforms.
This marketing of flavours works across all forms of nicotine and tobacco products, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, pouches and hookahs.
WHO said flavours such as menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy, are “masking the harshness of tobacco” and other nicotine products, turning what are toxic products “into youth-friendly bait.”
Call for action
Just ahead of World No Tobacco Day, the UN health agency released a series of fact sheets and called on governments to ban all flavours in tobacco and nicotine products to protect young people from lifelong addiction and disease.
It cited Articles 9 and 10 of the successful 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which obliges countries to regulate the contents and disclosure of tobacco products, including flavourings.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that “without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic…will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours.”
As of December 2024, over 50 countries had adopted policies regulating tobacco additives, with most targeting flavourings by banning flavour labels or images and restricting the sale of flavored products. Some also control flavour use during production.
However, the WHO noted that tobacco companies and retailers have found ways to circumvent these rules, offering flavour accessories including sprays, cards, capsules and filter tips, to add to unflavoured products.
Still, WHO is urging all 184 FCTC parties (which make up 90 per cent of the world’s population) to implement and enforce strong bans and restrictions on flavoured products and related additives.
UN humanitarians have raised alarm over Haiti’s heightened vulnerability to natural disasters, warning that the country’s limited capacity to respond could be severely tested during the 2025 hurricane season – forecast to be significantly more intense than average across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Running from June to November, the upcoming season poses a serious threat to the impoverished island nation, where economic crisis, ongoing gang-related violence and rampant insecurity have already displaced over one million people.
Displacement sites at risk
More than 200,000 people are currently living in displacement sites across the country, many of which are situated in flood-prone areas.
Lacking proper shelter, drainage and sanitation, these camps “leave families acutely vulnerable to storms,” said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is working with national authorities and humanitarian partners to prepare for the hurricane season. Ongoing efforts include contingency planning, mapping of high-risk areas – particularly displacement sites – and strengthening early warning systems.
However, humanitarian access remains limited, and preparedness is severely hindered by the lack of pre-positioned supplies throughout the country.
This is a “direct consequence of underfunding,” said Mr. Dujarric, adding that “funding remains a major obstacle” to the UN’s emergency response in Haiti.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of severe lung infections in young children globally, resulting in approximately 100,000 deaths each year among children under the age of five.
Alarmingly, 97 per cent of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.
Although RSV can infect people of all ages, “it is especially harmful to infants, particularly those born prematurely,” said Kate O’Brien from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Around half of all RSV-related deaths occur in babies younger than six months.
New immunisation products
On Friday, WHO issued recommendations for two new immunisation tools: a maternal vaccine, administered to pregnant women in their third trimester to protect their newborns; and a long-acting antibody injection for infants, which begins to protect within a week of administration and lasts for at least five months.
Considering the global burden of severe RSV illness in infants, WHO recommends that all countries adopt either the maternal vaccine or the antibody injection as part of their national immunisation strategies.
“These RSV immunisation products can transform the fight against severe RSV disease, dramatically reduce hospitalisations and deaths, and ultimately save many infant lives worldwide,” said Ms O’Brien.
According to UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, more than 290 schools have been damaged or destroyed in Ituri this year alone, bringing the total number of out-of-school children in the province to over 1.3 million.
Protection crisis
Between January and April 2025, a surge in violence displaced more than 100,000 people – half of them children. During this period, reported cases of abduction, maiming, sexual violence, and the recruitment and use of children by armed groups rose by 32 per cent compared to the same timeframe last year.
John Adbor, UNICEF’s representative in the DRC, referred to the situation as a “protection crisis”, stating: “Violence and conflict are shattering children’s right to learn – putting them at far greater risk of being recruited by armed groups, exploited, and abused.”
“The needs are immense, and our resources are not enough,” Mr. Adbor added, referring to UNICEF’s emergency response in the region.
With more than 1.8 million conflict-affected children now out of school across the DRC, UNICEF is prioritising mental health and psychosocial support through child-friendly spaces, reintegration of children formerly associated with armed groups, and treatment for acute malnutrition.
My subject today was inspired by a sister who visited our home, and at the end of the evening, she asked me, “Brother Farrakhan, I’ve watched you grow and I’m touched by the growth of your love for our people. How can I grow to love like I see you love?”
I never have been asked a question like that, but, while she was asking, Allah (God) was giving me the answer. I answered her, and as I looked at the words going out of my mouth, I realized that Allah (God) had given to me something so profound that I determined that at the first chance I get, I would share it with you.
My subject today is taken from the Bible, and it’s called “The Two Great Commandments of Allah (God).” Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
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The Old Testament, or the Torah, of the Bible is full of laws—what things you shall do and shall not do; and the blessings and the cursings if you do or don’t do them. The Holy Qur’an is a book of law, but Jesus said, “…On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
If you have a hanger and you have nothing to hang it on, you can’t hang up that which you want hung. So prophets who brought law come out of the Love of Allah (God) for the people, the Love of Allah (God) for His creation.
You don’t need law if you’re not lawless. Law only prescribes the limits that Allah (God) imposes on the human being for your growth, your development, and your success in the life that He gives you.
When you grow starting with law, starting with imposing limits on yourself, you grow into that out of which the law came. You grow into love. You grow into Allah (God). Then there’s no more need for law, because love is the essence of the law; and there is no law greater than love.
I looked at this word “love” and thought to myself how we have messed it up. You say, “I love you,” but you don’t know what that word “love” means! You use it in such a weak, cheap way because you don’t understand the word and the principle that undergirds the word. If you did, you wouldn’t be in the shape that you’re in. Your life is a loveless life.
You cannot separate self from Allah (God), because the self and Allah (God) are One. To know self is to know Allah (God), because Allah (God) is the Creator of the self and the self that He gave you in His Image is Himself. If you don’t have love, you don’t have life.
These are the same words. The Bible says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” People today think they’re living life, but what they call life is really death. And what you call love is really hate. I’m going to prove it.
You receive gifts, and you give gifts. And you have a tendency to love those who give you gifts, but, nobody has given a gift like Allah (God) gives. He gives you eyes and then gives you something to look at. You have an Earth at which you can keep on looking and looking and looking.
And the more you look, the more you see, and the more you see, the more you marvel at a Mighty God. When you get tired of looking at the Earth, you lay down on the grass and look up at the wonders in the heavens above you. If you get tired, you can go down in the water and look at a world under the water.
You open the Earth, and another world is in the Earth. The more you look, the more you see. So the Master said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” All you have to do is seek, but what you’re looking for is already here.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given, because Allah (God) is the Essence of love itself, and there is no love without Allah (God). If Allah (God) is not involved in your life, then love is not involved in you. And the words that you use are a mockery.
Mother, when you have your first child and you love it so much, and you put all you have into that little one, you may say to yourself, “Lord, I don’t know if I could ever love another child like I love this one.” Then you find out you’re pregnant again, and you’ve got more love for number two. Then if you have three, you have love for three.
You have four, you have love for four. It makes no difference how many you have, Allah (God) gives you the capacity to love whatever you bring. So when He says, “Love Me with all your heart,” you don’t know what all is until He stretches you, until you’re willing to be stretched. Allah (God) would not give you a Commandment that He knew you couldn’t fulfill.
When Jesus says that the first great Commandment is to love Allah (God) with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, he knows that each of us can do it. But you have to know why. I’m in debt to Allah (God) for the eyes that He gave me to see this marvelous creation.
I’m in debt to Allah (God) for the ears that He gave me that I can hear the sound of my mother’s voice, the sound of my brother, my sister, the sound of my teacher, the sound of music. I can hear it, and I love what I hear because Allah (God) gave me ears.
I loved the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He was my teacher. I loved him so much, I thought. And I did love him, and do love him, but was it love or was it that he satisfied a need? Think with me now.
Maybe you should say “I need” rather than “I love” because the word and our actions are not congruent. You’re hungry. You need food. You need the protein, the carbohydrates, the chemistry of what you eat, to keep what you love alive. When you fall in love with food, then you show how much you hate yourself.
The fact that I didn’t love myself meant I could never have loved Elijah Muhammad as much as I thought. And if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love Allah (God) as much as you would like. It starts with your recognition of Allah (God) and your recognition of yourself.
If you hate the fact that you’re Black, how could you love the God that made you Black? If you hate the nappiness of your hair and Allah (God) gave you that hair, how can you love Allah (God) and hate what Allah (God) has made? You’re lying to yourself. You’re lying to your wives, your husbands, your friends, because you can never love your neighbor except to the degree that you love yourself.
And your love of Allah (God) is tainted. It’s only based on what Allah (God) can do for you. And you love people based on what you expect people to do for you. If they ever stop doing for you, what happens to your love? So your love and our love has a condition to it.
I found out as a young minister that I loved Allah (God), I loved the resurrection of our people, but I also loved the applause. You noticed that I told you today not to applaud so much, but to listen and think. I don’t love that anymore. But when I was a child, I spoke like one. Now I’m becoming a mature man, and I have to put away childish things. I want you to hear me today.
I told this sister that I really didn’t love myself. I loved Elijah Muhammad and his family. I would do anything for him and his family, but I wouldn’t do it for mine. And I have to analyze that now. How could I look after Muhammad’s wife and don’t look after mine? How could I sacrifice for Muhammad’s children and neglect mine?
I could say, “it’s the cause. I’m for the Nation!” But I’m a liar if I say that I’m for the Nation and not for my family, when my family is the essence of the Nation. When you neglect your family, you have neglected the Nation. When you uphold your family and look out for your family, you’re looking out for the Nation.
When I began to answer this sister’s question about love, I said, “You know, sister, the more I fell in love with me, the more I could demonstrate love for you, because you and I are from the same source.”
And the more I could fall in love with me—not in a vain way—the more I could love Allah (God) Who Created me. I soon will be 70 years old, and I’m just learning how to love. It’s a long distance, brother, but it’s better to learn at 70 than never to learn at all.
I told the sister, “Go home and write down all the things about yourself that you love. And everything about yourself that you love is of Allah (God).
And on the other side, write down the things about yourself that you don’t like, and that’s what you’ve got to work on in order to love yourself more. Until you do that, you can’t love people any more than you love yourself. And you cannot love Allah (God) any more than you love yourself.”
And this is why the teaching of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the greatest message that you could receive, because in it is a profound knowledge of Allah (God) and a profound knowledge of self. You can only love yourself based upon what you know of yourself.
