Press releases

N'DJAMENA/NEW YORK 24 October 2025 – "Thank you for joining us.  I speak to you a day after leaving Darfur, following a mission that also took me to Khartoum."What I saw was alarming. Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The conflict is escalating, and children are paying the highest price.

GENEVA/NEW YORK/ROME/PORT SUDAN, 23 October 2025 – Four United Nations agencies today called for urgent international attention on the crisis in Sudan, to address the immense suffering and growing dangers to the population. Over 900 days of brutal fighting, widespread violations of human rights, famine, and the breakdown of life-sustaining services have pushed millions to the brink of survival, particularly women and children.

London, UK, October 10 2025 - UNICEF UK Ambassador Arlo Parks joined pupils at Moreland School in Islington for a Dove Self-Esteem Project workshop (DSEP) focused on building body confidence and self-esteem.

PORT-AU-PRINCE/NEW YORK, 9 October 2025 – The number of children displaced by violence in Haiti has almost doubled in the past year, with 680,000 now uprooted from their homes, according to a new UNICEF Child Alert report released today. Overall, more than 1.3 million people are displaced across the country as spiraling violence, collapsing services, and lack of humanitarian access push Haiti deeper into crisis. 

London, 30 September 2025 – Understanding how online and offline influences interact to shape adolescent development and wellbeing is at the heart of a new initiative announced today by UNICEF. The leading child rights organisation is partnering with Bukhman Philanthropies to support Navigating Childhood in the Digital Age — a four-year longitudinal study led by UNICEF’s Global Office of Research and Foresight.

KINSHASA, DR Congo, 24 September 2025 – Nearly 45,000 doses of the Ebola vaccine are on their way to Kasai province as UNICEF intensifies efforts alongside the government and partners to protect children and families from the latest outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Port-au-Prince, 23 September 2025 – “UNICEF is deeply shocked and concerned by the killing of ten children in ten days in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.  

NEW YORK/AMMAN/PORT SUDAN, 22 September 2025 – “The drone attack on a mosque at the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people in Al Fasher, North Darfur, during Fajr prayers three days ago is shocking and unconscionable. Initial reports indicate that at least 11 children, aged 6 to 15, were killed in the deadly attack, which hit not only the mosque, but also adjacent homes.

“Yesterday, armed individuals approached four trucks outside our compound in Gaza City that were getting ready to transport desperately needed Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for malnourished children enduring famine.

KABUL, 12 September 2025 -  “Afghanistan is once again reeling from tragedy and children are at the sharp end of an aggravating crisis. We must respond not only with urgency, but with a commitment to immediately reverse it.

NEW YORK/BANGKOK/YANGON, 12 September 2025 — UNICEF is extremely concerned by reports of an overnight attack on a boarding school in Kyauktaw Township, Rakhine State, Myanmar, that reportedly killed and injured children as they slept.

NEW YORK, 10 September 2025 – Obesity surpassed underweight as the more prevalent form of malnutrition this year, affecting 1 in 10 – or 188 million – school-aged children and adolescents, and placing them at risk of life-threatening disease, UNICEF warned in a new report today.

GENEVA/KYIV, 28 August 2025 – “A wave of deadly attacks hit Kyiv during the early hours of this morning – reportedly killing four children, including a toddler. At least 10 children were reportedly injured. The children were at home in their beds, trying to sleep.  

ADDIS ABABA — An estimated 8.2 percent of the global population, or about 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5 percent in 2023 and 8.7 percent in 2022. However, progress was not consistent across the globe, as hunger continued to rise in most subregions of Africa and western Asia, according to this year’s The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025) report published today by five specialized agencies of the United Nations.

New UK Government data released today shows 1.6 million children are locked out of financial support due to the number of siblings they have, and the vast majority (1.1 million children) are living in families with a child or baby under 5 years old. 

“This strategy is a very welcome and essential step toward closing the inequalities gap in early childhood and will give children the best start in life that they all deserve, particularly in its recognition that poverty and inequality must be addressed in the early years. The commitment to invest in and bring together local services through Best Start Family Hubs is vital and will go a long way to meeting the needs of families with babies and young children. 

KYIV/GENEVA, 4 July 2025 – The verified number of children killed or injured in Ukraine between 1 March and 31 May 2025 increased by more than 200 per cent compared to the previous quarter, according to data from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.

25 June 2025 – Dr Philip Goodwin, Chief Executive Officer for the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK), said: “This pledge from the UK Government will bring Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, closer to its ambitious goal of reaching another 500 million children worldwide with critical vaccines and vitally, saving another nine million lives by 2030.

23 June 2025 – UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell today concluded a three-day mission to Chad, warning of the worsening crisis affecting children in the eastern part of the country that has seen the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sudan.