A visit from ‘Aunt Natasha’

Already one of the poorest countries in Europe, The Republic of Moldova has been deeply impacted by the conflict in Ukraine. Indeed, many thousands of Ukrainians have found sanctuary in Moldova, which borders Ukraine to the north, east and west. The Red Cross Society of the Republic of Moldova is helping both refugees and Moldovans as they face compounding economic hardships. The modest but regular support from Red Cross volunteers — like ‘Aunt Natasha’ — can make a big difference.

‘Our techniques are working!’

Following principles of ‘build-back safer’ and ‘build back local’, some communities in Madagascar are boosting their resilience to tropical storms. Some have already passed their first, very severe test: Cyclone Freddy.

To trust, or not to trust?

That is a question many migrants must ask themselves every day as they navigate life on the move, or in new surroundings. A study from the International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement sheds light on how to ensure migrants, including refugees, can trust those who are trying to help.

Ensuring everyone gets an equal chance to protect themselves from Covid-19

Travelling up rivers and mountains to help indigenous communities in remote parts of Peru make informed decisions about vaccination against Covid-19.

‘I can put myself in their shoes’

Conflict forced Walid from his home. Now he helps others living through the same situation.

‘Our duty to the children’

War in Yemen has not dampened teacher Abdullah Yahya’s passion for educating the next generation

‘No room to say, We can’t’

Another day of doing the impossible at the Republican Hospital in Saada

A heavy responsibility: Seham’s daily walk for water

At only 12 years old, Seham has a very important job — on which her whole family depends.

Recipes for Resilience Cookbook

Exploring the foods we love, the people who cook them and the links between our favorite meals and the critical challenges of our times.

Imperfect storms

As the Atlantic hurricane season begins and Covid-19 cases rise, countries such as Honduras, already reeling from last year’s storms, are being forced to manage multiple, overlapping crises.

When lightning strikes twice (or even three times)

The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing a critical examination of how communities and countries prepare for multiple, overlapping crises. Here are a few lessons the Japanese Red Cross Society learned after the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown ten years ago this month.

Putting the chill on Spain’s Covid-19 hotspots

As Covid-19 spikes again in many European cities, young volunteers hit the streets, trying to cool down the pandemic’s spread by bringing a healthy message to the places where young people hang out.

Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital: why nuclear weapons must never be used again

As of today, 50 countries have ratified a treaty that bans nuclear weapons, a significant milestone that adds momentum to the movement toward the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

Cookbook for resilience

Do you have a taste for innovative solutions that help people get through crisis, that provide comfort after a storm, or that offer a lifeline to those who might be otherwise left out? If so, you will love these four Recipes for Resilience, and the stories behind them.

A new nightmare for African migrants with an American dream

Migrants from Africa and beyond are now trapped by pandemic in Latin America, stuck in limbo while waiting for their chance at a better life.

Atomic bomb survivors: it’s time to ban nuclear weapons

75 years after two atomic bombs almost entirely wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, survivors such as Rieko Yamada won’t rest until the world is rid of nuclear weapons.

Life in the hotspot

The deadly mix of climate change and conflict has long plagued parts of the Sahel. Now, the emergence of climatic hotspots are testing the limits of resilience.

In their shoes

Building trust by listening, learning and responding to community concerns.

When trust means life or death

Stopping Ebola virus disease is not just about providing information, vaccine and treatment. It’s about gaining the trust of people with good reason to be wary.

Handcuffing the helpers | part 2

Laws aimed at limiting support for groups considered as ‘terrorist’ are having unintended consequences on humanitarian aid .

Handcuffing the helpers | Part 1

As migration is increasingly treated as a security matter rather than a humanitarian concern, migrants and those trying to help them are being regarded as criminals.

Easier said than done?

A reactive, emergency mentality. A reflection of society. Lack of political pressure. These are a few of the reasons why gender disparity persists in the humanitarian sector.

Gender matters!

Half the people we serve (and often more) are women. Gender parity is not only a question of principle, it’s about results.

Equality in aid

Will a new urgency, sparked by frustration, help close the humanitarian gender gap?

‘I was praying to God to take her life.’

What does it take for a health worker to wish death for her patient, even while doing everything to save her? This is just one of the agonizing questions I was confronted with during a mental health assessment.

Bridge of hope

Red Cross Red Crescent magazine goes on the road with migrants as they make the exhausting journey through the freezing mountain passes of northern Colombia.

Shared history, common humanity

Fabian Arellano Peña, who leads the Colombian Red Cross’ disaster management team, explains what the world needs to learn from the Americas’ biggest, on going, mass migration.

The journey from Cucuta

A typical day for thousands of migrants making the long trek on foot through Colombia. These are their stories.

Engineering resilience

Given the climate predictions for many areas effected by long-term conflict, is it time to think differently about the way cities are rebuilt or assisted during warfare?

Will a hotter planet lead to more armed conflict?

Climate change is not a primary cause of armed conflict, most experts say. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future, as the planet continues to heat up.

Climate of war

Will a warming planet lead to a more violent world? Or will it inflict more suffering on those living through conflict?

The wildfire diaries

As the scale and frequency of fires hitting the Canadian province of British Columbia increases — in part due to climate change — the lives of local people are changing dramatically. Hear their stories.

The backbone and the brain

olunteers are often called the ‘heart’ or the ‘backbone’ of the Movement because they have passion and they do most of the heavy lifting. Is it time to rethink these metaphors?

Medicine for the heart

A guided tour with IFRC President Francesco Rocca through an ancient city being rebuilt.

A pillar of strength and hope

A mother’s search for her daughter highlights how easily people fall out of touch — even in the digital age.

Between hope and desperation

Families of people who have gone missing bear a singular psychological and emotional burden.

Mixed signals

Even in the digital age, people going through crisis can still fall through the cracks

A brave new magazine

Editorial: An inside look at the changes ahead for Red Cross Red Crescent magazine

Finding peace of mind

Mental health and psychosocial services can be critical to recovery efforts in times of crisis.

Wherever they are

Whether travelling by train, road, foot or plane, migrants and asylum seekers often find themselves in extremely vulnerable situations.

Crisis within crisis

With conflict and ravaged infrastructure complicating the response, the Somalia drought crisis is a case study on the challenges of saving lives in a complex emergency.

Radical rethink

To keep pace with rapid and sweeping change, the humanitarian sector needs to fundamentally transform the way it works, moving from isolated action to collective impact.

Fighting grips Philippine city

Movement mourns more aid worker killings

Surfing the future

Getting ahead of future trends is not always just about predicting particular events or outcomes.

A race against time and tide

With sea levels rising and the population affected by a succession of droughts and heavy tropical storms, the country faces existential threats.

One response, one voice

Complex crises, such as the emergency in South Sudan, can test the capacity of the Red Cross Red Crescent movement to respond with one voice.

Uniting for humanity

After eight years as president of the world’s largest humanitarian volunteer network, Tadateru Konoé reflects on the critical work ahead in strengthening National Societies, volunteerism and local humanitarian action.

Never say never

Will we ever be able to say ‘never again’ to drought, famine and violence in sub-Saharan Africa?

Publications 2-2017

No time for hopelessness

Guest editorial by John Lobor, Secretary General of the South Sudan Red Cross

Publications 1-2017

Deadly avalanches

Movement rocked by more aid worker deaths

Survey finds most people support rules of war

Empty nest in Gaza

Struggling to survive in South Kivu

Urban outbreaks

How should cities, humanitarian organizations and local communities avoid the next urban pandemic?

Life on Syria Street

The largely urban conflict in Syria has also had a major impact on cities in neighbouring countries. Lebanon, which hosts some 1.2million Syrians, is dealing with complex confessional fault lines.

Urban resilience: a tale of two cities

We could say that today’s rapid urbanization is a tale of two cities. The first is a story of shining high-rises, the second, a tale of sprawling shanty towns. A guest editorial by Fouad Bendimerad.

Mapping a city on the move

How a digital mapping project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania helps local communities take on urban risk, street by street.

A walk through Kigogo

Using an online map they helped developed with local residents, Tanzania Red Cross National Society volunteers offer a tour of the risks and assets of Kigogo, a neighbourhood in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Front line city

As cities take on greater importance — as population centres and economic hubs — they have also become front lines in most of today’s conflicts.

Stateless in the city

Working together to support stateless Shan people in the urban outskirts of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Cities of misery and hope

In the so-called villas miserias of Buenos Aires, migrant communities face marginalization, lack key services and live in neglected neighbourhoods.

Money talks

Communication, community engagement and preparedness are key as more National Societies use cash in emergency response.

Publications issue 3

Building on a strong market

As cash grants help Nepali families recover from the April 2015 earthquake, a vibrant marketplace for goods and services provides a foundation for recovery.

The cost of violence

Author and researcher Patricia Leidl says the helping communities recover from crisis and overcoming poverty requires greater protection for women and girls.

Focus: Lives in limbo

In a field hospital at the al Azraq refugee camp, just 100 kilometres from the Syrian border in northern Jordan, a baby is born to a woman fleeing conflict in Syria.

Guest editorial

Cash, a chance for change
By Degan Ali, executive director of African Development Solutions.

Education in crisis

With more people on the move than ever before, conflicts lasting years and chronic violence on the rise in many areas, millions of children are deprived of even a basic education.

Attacks on aid workers continue

Italian Red Cross aids quake victims

Volunteers respond to Gabon election violence

Massive yellow fever campaign in Angola

ICRC helps four athletes realize a dream

The case for cash

From Ecuador to Myanmar, Nepal to Somalia, Viet Nam to Canada, cash transfers are now an integral part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s aid operations.

Burkina Faso

As donors and international organizations discuss how best to support local organizations, many are coming up with their own ideas on how to ensure self-financing of local humanitarian relief.

A bigger piece of the pie

Donors pledge to increase direct funding of local and national organizations.

The fight against Zika

With plenty of front-line experience fighting the mosquito that spreads chikungunya and dengue, National Societies in Latin America gear up against another mosquito-borne disease.

Yellow fever outbreak could spread, IFRC warns

ICRC: sparing the civilians of Fallujah

El Niño sweeps southern Africa

‘I used to sit alone’

In for the long haul

Donors and relief organizations agree that people affected by natural disaster or trapped in protracted conflict need more stable, long-term support.

Publications 2-2016

Deaths at sea continue in the Mediterranean

Guest editorials: World Humanitarian Summit — a big deal for humanity?

A big deal for Humanity?

Three months after delegates to the World Humanitarian Summit have gone back to their communities, what will all the big promises mean over the long term?

Humanity under fire

Bombed hospitals. Health and first-aid workers killed. Heavily populated urban areas bombarded. What can be done to ensure respect for the rules of war?

Movement voice heard in Paris climate talks

Guest editorial

In a time of mounting crises and rapid change, we must rethink our collective response

VIDEOS

Online tools

Publications

Helping hands

Civil unrest poses some of the greatest challenges for local humanitarian organizations.

Uncommon risks

Nuclear accidents and other technological disasters are rare. But 30 years after Chernobyl, the disaster reminds us of the urgent need to prepare.

Preparing for the worst

Technological disasters present great challenges for local first responders.

Taiwan Red Cross responds to deadly earthquake

With Ebola outbreak waning, a focus on early detection

Supporting returning domestic workers

Horrifying conditions in besieged Syrian cities

Better shelter for Sri Lanka’s displaced

Movement adopts new logo

For the first time in its 150-year-plus history, the Movement has approved a Movement-wide logo representing all its components — the ICRC, National Societies and the IFRC.

The fight against Zika

Phones, drones and beyond

Mobile phones were commonplace for many years before becoming an integral part of the humanitarian toolkit.

At the crossroads of crisis

Turkish Red Crescent: entrepreneurial spirit as it faces one of the world’s greatest humanitarian challenges right at its doorstep.

A call for humanity

In the shadow of mounting challenges, the Movement’s 32nd International Conference made a case for building a stronger humanitarian response from the ground up.

Bright ideas, local solutions

As humanitarians explore new technologies and innovation, how can local communities shape the technologies best suited for their needs?

A message to the World Humanitarian Summit

A message from Yves Daccord and Elhadj As Sy to world leaders.

A planet of extremes

As the planet warms due to climate change, weather patterns are changing and in many cases becoming more extreme.

A stronger base for local action

Beyond projects and emergency response, how can international humanitarian organizations support sustainable humanitarian engagement at the local level?

Fighting by the rules

Could a voluntary compliance mechanism, designed to be non-binding and non-political, help bridge the gap between the ideals behind the rules of war and real-world practice on the ground?

Mounting needs spur larger distributions for refugees

With support from the Lebanese Red Cross, the ICRC distributed 90 tonnes of food to around 10,000 Syrian refugees in northern Lebanon in late September.

Movement renews calls for end to nuclear weapons

At the 25th United Nations Conference on Disarmament Issues in Hiroshima, Japan, Movement representatives emphasized the need for governments to take urgent action to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons through a binding international agreement.

Irresponsible transfer of weapons is rife

Many countries are still involved in illegal arms transfers despite having committed themselves to an international treaty to regulate the flow of such weapons, according to the ICRC.

Myanmar villages recovering after farmlands flooded

As monsoon flood waters began to recede in the south-western delta region of Myanmar, the fields around villages such as Yay Dar Gyi still looked more like a lake than farmlands in late August.

Flash floods leave families stranded in Pakistan

In Pakistan, monsoon rains coupled with outbursts from glacial lakes have so far claimed 219 lives and affected about 1.5 million people.

Indian Red Cross responds to monsoon floods

As monsoon clouds threatened still more rain, the Indian Red Cross Society geared up to respond to floods that killed more than 200 people and affected some 10 million others.

More Movement workers killed in Yemen

The conflict in Yemen claimed the lives of four more Movement workers in recent months.

Between the cracks

Even for those who manage to make it to a destination country with a good economy, their odyssey is not over.

Focus: A world on the run

Powerful images of migrants drowned at sea, crossing over razor-wire fences or arriving on shore after a shipwreck have propelled the current migration phenomenon to the forefront of public consciousness in Europe in the past year.

The border of broken dreams

Sent back to Guatemala after being caught by police in Mexico, Guatemalan migrants arrive at the border with little more than the clothes they are wearing.

So close, yet so far

Along the Mediterranean coast near the border of Italy and France, people fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty live in limbo.

Horn of Africa faces a new dilemma

The Gulf of Aden has long been one of the world’s deadliest places for migrants. Now the conflict in Yemen has reversed traditional migration patterns and created new humanitarian challenges.

Dying for a better life

Stories among the many tragedies that have befallen people hoping to reach safe shores in Europe in 2015.

Guest editorial: Migration – put humanity first

People fleeing conflict, persecution, poverty or natural disaster deserve to be treated with humanity.

Discuss: 21st Century Fundamental Principles

It has been fifty years since the adoption of the Seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. Do you think they’re still relevant to 21st century life and humanitarian work, or do they need updating?

Addressing sexual violence against men and boys

The day is coming when humanitarian workers in the field will assume that any person, be they female or male, child, elder, youth or adult, may be a survivor of sexual violence.

Suffering worsens as fighting continues in northern Nigeria

In the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the epicentre of fighting between Boko Haram and the Nigerian army, the scale of humanitarian needs and the horrific mental scars and physical injuries the violence is leaving on the population are appalling.

Three Nepal Red Cross workers killed in earthquake

As the Nepal Red Cross Society continues its work on behalf of thousands of people affected by the earthquakes in April and May, it also pays tribute to three National Society members who died while on duty on 25 April.

Voices to action

When the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent convenes in December, will the voices of people at the grass roots be heard?

Remembering the ‘old ways’

A project that links high-tech weather forecasting with traditional knowledge is being piloted in the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu in an effort to help people cope with climate change and disasters.

Calls for action on migration

The secretaries general of 21 European Red Cross Societies, along with IFRC Secretary General Elhadj As Sy, have called for more compassionate action on behalf of migrants after yet another series of sea disasters claimed the lives of thousands of people in the Mediterranean Sea.

‘Hoping to escape death’ in Iraq

When fighting in the central Iraqi city of Ramadi forced thousands of people to flee their houses, they look for refuge in safer areas in the country, particularly in Al Amiriyah Fallujah and Al Khalidiya in Al Anbar province.

Middle East being bled dry by conflict

Even before conflict broke out in Iraq and Syria, people in the Middle East were suffering from severe water shortages as the past few years’ rising violence and record low rainfall have made access to an adequate quantity and quality of water increasingly difficult, according to a recent report by the ICRC.

Building a stronger foundation

Why a solid legal foundation is the first building block for effective and principled humanitarian action.

Breaking point

As conflict intensified in Yemen, and many aid agencies were forced to leave, locally based Movement workers have been the backbone of the humanitarian response.

Aftershock

People in Nepal are learning how to survive, rebuild and deal with trauma as more aftershocks bring back terrible memories.

Knowledge is key

How hand-held tablets and a system for uploading data in real time may make detention conditions healthier and more humane in the Philippines.

Preventing death with data

How data are helping people in a fractured country avoid the death sentence imposed when life-saving malaria drugs are not available.

Invisible scars

Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence are often hidden due to social stigma, fear of reprisals or further violence.

An early test of principle

In the aftermath of genocide in Cambodia,the principle of impartiality faced one ofits greatest trials.

Matters of principle

The Fundamental Principles turn 50 years old this year. What better time to examine the challenges faced in putting these key guiding principles into action?

Cases of Identity

Chile’s greatest mysteries: what happened to those who disappeared during the country’s decades of military regime?