Emergencies

Our global prescence means that we are on the ground before, during and after disaster strikes.

(C)UNICEF/HQ05-0303/Josh Estey

For over 60 years, UNICEF has been providing life-saving assistance to children caught in humanitarian crises.

Our continuing presence in more than 150 countries means that we are often on the spot long before, and long after, a crisis or unstable situation occurs. Our role in emergencies is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and protect the rights of children. And because we remain when others may leave, we ensure that emergency aid turns into long-term recovery and development. Read about our work for children caught in silent emergencies >>

War and natural disasters have an especially fierce impact on children in developing countries.

Both put children's health and well being at risk. Both can separate them from their parents or make them orphans. In the last decade alone more than 2 million children have died as a direct result of armed conflict and a further 6 million have been permanently disabled or seriously injured. An estimated 20 million have been forced to flee their homes, and more than 1 million have been orphaned or separated from their families

Our field staff work hard to relieve the suffering of children and their families.

Measles, diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, and malnutrition are the major killers of children during humanitarian crises. Therefore, emergency immunisation is one of our priority interventions, along with vitamin A supplementation and therapeutic feeding centers. We also work to ensure safe supplies of drinking water, and to improve sanitary conditions for communities and the displaced.

We help reunite parents with their children when they've been separated and make sure that children who are orphaned receive care and protection. We focus on psycho-social support for traumatised children, relief for child soldiers, prevention of HIV/AIDS and give special attention to women and girls caught in crisis situations. And we insist, that even in times of war, children attend school and have safe places to play and learn.

Re-building and re-establishing schools and health care services, providing permanent safe water supplies and sanitation facilities, and providing long-term care and support for orphans, are just a few of the activities UNICEF undertakes in the weeks and months following an emergency.

UNICEF in Action: Emergencies

Throughout the 3 year bloody conflict in Sudan's Darfur Region, UNICEF has provided water, medicine, food and immunisations for the almost 2 million people who have fled their homes to escape the brutal fighting and are now living in refuge camps.

In 2005 a cataclysmic earthquake killed an estimated 75,000 people in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, and left millions more homeless. UNICEF moved quickly to provide the survivors with tents, clean water, vaccines, and blankets, measures that prevented a secondary death wave through the bitter winter of 2006.

UNICEF responded immediately to the Indian-Ocean Tsunami, mobilising an all-out relief effort with one urgent goal: to keep child survivors alive. Emergency supplies such as tents and blankets, vaccines, high-protein biscuits, and clean drinking water and sanitation facilities saved thousands from potential disease outbreaks. UNICEF also made every effort to reunite separated and orphaned children with their extended families and protect children from exploitation. UNICEF continues to work in tsunami-affected communities and will help survivors ‘build back better' for years to come.

Become a Global Parent

Donate Now

Shop

$21 is the price of 5 large woolen blankets that will give children warmth and protect them from the elements.

$33 can provide 40 packets of high energy biscuits, especially developed for malnourished children in emergency situations.

$138 can buy a basic family water kit, containing items such as water containers, buckets, soap, and water purification tablets, sufficient to meet the needs of 10 families.