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The number of hungry people in the world has passed the one billion mark for the first time ever, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. This means that one in six people go to bed desperately hungry every night.

International humanitarian organizations Action Against Hunger | ACF International, Islamic Relief (IR), and Save the Children (SC-UK) have issued a joint appeal for urgent action to contain and reverse the alarming rates of acute malnutrition uncovered in Kenya’s northeastern province.

On Wednesday, March 4th, authorities in northern Sudan ordered the global humanitarian organization ACF International to leave Darfur along with nine other international aid organizations. With registrations revoked, ACF’s offices in Khartoum were sealed off and the organization’s programs brought to a halt.

The recent political instability in the D.R. Congo has forced many Congolese nationals to flee fighting by crossing the border into western Uganda. In the last few weeks of 2008, some 200 refugees crossed into Uganda each day. Many humanitarian organizations are on site to assist the 1.2 million already displaced in the D.R. Congo; others have moved to provide assistance to the 50,000 new arrivals in Uganda.

After 19 days of attacks and military intervention, the water and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip are on the verge of total collapse. Despite difficulties of access, the global humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger / Action Contre la Faim (ACF) has begun trucking emergency supplies of clean water to some 48,000 people in Gaza.

Over the last 12 days, Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants—1 million of whom are women and children—have been subjected to constant aerial, sea, and land-based bombardments without any way to escape the violence. The global humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger / Action Contre la Faim (ACF) calls upon all sides to cease hostilities and allow for humanitarian assistance to reach the displaced in Gaza.

A fragile lull in the fighting in North Kivu has allowed access for the humanitarian assistance needed by hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing insecurity in the eastern D.R. Congo.

The international humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger | ACF International announced a scaling up of its ongoing efforts to address the onset of cholera across southern Zimbabwe. State-owned media announced new cholera outbreaks in the city of Beitbridge on November 18, which to date has claimed more than 300 lives, with more than a 6,000 infections confirmed by medical organizations working in the region.

The international humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger | ACF International has dispatched emergency teams to North Kivu, D.R. Congo, where tens of thousands have been displaced in the latest round of armed conflict between government troops and rebel militias. The teams are assessing on the ground conditions in the Sake-Minova axis, west of Lake Kivu.

This morning in Dhusa Mareb, Somalia, four expatriates working for the humanitarian aid agency Action Against Hunger | ACF International were ambushed by gunmen while en route to the airport.