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A humanitarian crisis (or "humanitarian disaster") is an event or series of events which represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people, usually over a wide area. Armed conflict
Conflict

Conflict is a part of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, Value s and interests. A conflict can be internal or external ....
s, epidemic
Epidemic

In epidemiology, an infection that is epidemic appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent experience ....
s, famine
Famine

A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased death....
, natural disaster
Natural disaster

A natural disaster is the consequence of a natural hazard which affects human activities. Human vulnerability, exacerbated by the lack of planning or appropriate emergency management, leads to financial, environmental or human losses....
s and other major emergencies may all involve or lead to a humanitarian crisis.

e is no simple categorization of humanitarian crises.






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A humanitarian crisis (or "humanitarian disaster") is an event or series of events which represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people, usually over a wide area. Armed conflict
Conflict

Conflict is a part of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, Value s and interests. A conflict can be internal or external ....
s, epidemic
Epidemic

In epidemiology, an infection that is epidemic appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent experience ....
s, famine
Famine

A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased death....
, natural disaster
Natural disaster

A natural disaster is the consequence of a natural hazard which affects human activities. Human vulnerability, exacerbated by the lack of planning or appropriate emergency management, leads to financial, environmental or human losses....
s and other major emergencies may all involve or lead to a humanitarian crisis.

Categories

There is no simple categorization of humanitarian crises. Different communities and agencies tend to have definitions related to the concrete situations they face. A local fire service will tend to focus on issues such as flooding and weather induced crises. Medical and health related organizations are naturally focused on sudden crises to the health of a community.

An ongoing or lingering pandemic
Pandemic

A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide....
 may amount to a humanitarian crisis, especially where there are increasing levels of virulence
Virulence

Virulence refers to the degree of pathogenicity of an organism, or in other words the relative ability of a pathogen to cause disease.The word virulent, which is the adjective for virulence, derives from the Latin word virulentus, which means "full of poison." From an ecology point of view, virulence can be defined as the host's p...
, or rates of infection
Infection

An infection is the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species. In an infection, the infecting organism seeks to utilize the host resources to multiply ....
 as in the case of AIDS
AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the HIV ....
, bird flu
Influenzavirus A

Influenzavirus A is a genus of the Orthomyxoviridae family of viruses. Influenzavirus A includes only one species: Influenza A virus which causes influenza in birds and some mammals....
 or Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a common and often deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacterium, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis . Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the genitourinary system, the gastrointestinal system, bones, joints, and even the...
. Major health-related problems such as cancer
Cancer

Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cell display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis . These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, do not invade or metastasize....
, global warming
Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
 typically require an accentuated or punctuated mass-event to justify a label of "crisis" or "disaster".

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international Humanitarianism movement with approximately 97 million volunteers worldwide which started to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for the human being, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, Race , relig...
 lists categories which include different types of natural disasters, technological disasters (i.e. hazardous material spills, Chernobyl-type
Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7 instance on the International Nuclear Event Scale....
 of nuclear accidents, chemical explosions) and long-term man-made disasters related to "civil strife, civil war and international war".) Internationally, the humanitarian response sector has tended to distinguish between natural disasters and complex emergencies which are related to armed conflict and wars.

Examples

Recent humanitarian crises include the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 Coordinated Universal Time on December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia....
(Asian tsunami), the 2005 Kashmir earthquake
2005 Kashmir earthquake

The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake was a major earthquake epicenter in Azad Kashmir and in North West Frontier Province near the city of Muzaffarabad....
, Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest Atlantic hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States....
 in August 2005, Rwanda genocide, Sri Lankan civil war
Sri Lankan civil war

The Sri Lankan Civil War is the name given to the ongoing conflict on the island-nation of Sri Lanka. Since 23 July 1983, there has been on-and-off civil war, predominantly between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a Separatism armed organization which fights for the creation of an Independence state named...
, Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Israeli?Palestinian conflict is an ongoing dispute between Israelis and the Palestinian people. It forms part of the wider Arab?Israeli conflict....
, Afghan Civil War, Darfur Conflict
Darfur conflict

The War in Darfur is a conflict that is in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War, the current lines of conflict are seen by some reporters to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious....
, Iraq War
Iraq War

The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing conflicts military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a Multinational force in Iraq now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United King...
 and most recently in May 2008 Cyclone Nargis
Cyclone Nargis

Cyclone Nargis , was a strong tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Burma . The cyclone made landfall in the country on May 2, 2008, causing catastrophic destruction and at least 146,000 fatalities with thousands more people still missing....
 made landfall in Myanmar
Myanmar

Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia, or Indochina. The country is bordered by the People's Republic of China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest with...
 and claimed the lives of at least 22.000 people.

See also

  • Aid agency
    Aid agency

    An aid agency is an organisation dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government , between governments as multilateral donors and as private voluntary organizations ....
  • Central Emergency Response Fund
    Central Emergency Response Fund

    The Central Emergency Response Fund is a humanitarian funding mechanism established by the United Nations to enable more timely and reliable assistance to victims of natural disasters and armed conflicts....
  • Emergency management
    Emergency management

    Emergency management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response , as well as supporting, and rebuilding society after natural hazards or man-made hazards disasters have occurred....
  • Humanitarian aid
    Humanitarian aid

    Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarianism purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crisis. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity....
  • Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
    Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

    The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is a United Nations body formed in December 1991 by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/182....


Footnotes


External links

  • by Doctors Without Borders
    Médecins Sans Frontières

    M?decins Sans Fronti?res , or Doctors Without Borders, is a Secularism humanitarian aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing country facing Endemic ....
  • by Doctors Without Borders
    Médecins Sans Frontières

    M?decins Sans Fronti?res , or Doctors Without Borders, is a Secularism humanitarian aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing country facing Endemic ....