The Latest Breaking News from OCHA

Myanmar says the death toll from a powerful cyclone this week has burgeoned to at least 145, including 117 Muslim Rohingya

SITTWE, Myanmar: Residents in the capital of cyclone-ravaged Rakhine state queued for rice and drinking water as the United Nations negotiated with the internationally isolated Myanmar junta for access to hard-hit areas.

Floods have caused almost a quarter of a million people to flee their homes after the Shabelle river in central Somalia broke its banks and submerged the town of Beledweyne, even as the country faces its most severe drought in four decades, according to the government.

The United Nations said on Wednesday more than half Sudan's population now needed aid and protection, as civilians sought shelter from air strikes and sporadic clashes between rival military factions in the Khartoum area.

A powerful storm is closing in on the coasts of Bangladesh and Myanma, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands to safer locations.

Storm surges whipped up by a powerful cyclone moving inland from the Bay of Bengal inundated the Myanmar port city of Sittwe on Saturday, but largely spared a densely-populated cluster of refugee camps in low-lying neighbouring Bangladesh.

The storm intensified so quickly that it outranks all but a few other storms in the region's history.

Hundreds in Sudan have been killed, tens of thousands have fled, and the country is facing major supply shortages.

Senior aid worker issues warning over armed seizure of Khartoum lab containing deadly diseases

Fighting in Sudan eased on Tuesday and more foreigners and locals fled the capital Khartoum, where marauding combatants created what a UN agency said was a "high risk of biological hazard" by seizing a laboratory. The World Health Organization (WHO) said one of the warring parties had taken control of…

There is a "high risk of biological hazard" in the Sudanese capital Khartoum after one of the warring parties seized a laboratory holding measles and cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.