For Humanity | A Letter from EMERGENCY’s President

For Humanity.

2025 was yet another year beset by conflict without any sense of proportion, respect for agreed limits and fundamental principles of humanity. We have borne witness to the continued dismantling of the social contract enshrined under international law and by universal human rights: a historic rupture that has left many feeling powerless, yet many have also been so outraged that they have used their voices to speak out.

Ordinary people have been the guiding light, and the Gaza Strip one of the major catalysts for their solidarity. A renewed political consciousness within civil society has taught lessons in humanity and equality, rejecting the logic of war and rearmament that has supplanted diplomacy and justice.

EMERGENCY has joined this momentum, supporting the Global Sumud Flotilla as an eyewitness to the deliberate dehumanisation of Gaza, to humanitarian aid as a new military target, and to hunger wielded as a primitive weapon of death alongside increasingly sophisticated tools. Meanwhile, in Gaza’s so-called ‘safe zone’ – which is anything but safe – we have cared for people with chronic conditions, pregnant women and malnourished children.

In eastern Ukraine, we have established a health network for vulnerable people, suffering from over three years of invasion. Whilst in Sudan, where the ongoing war often fails to make international headlines, we have reopened the Mayo Paediatric Centre for the first time since the conflict broke out, restoring an essential service to a population in need.

We have continued to save lives in the Mediterranean, in defiance of the undeclared war on migrants. And in Afghanistan, where fighting has ceased but people continue to die from a humanitarian crisis, our hospitals remain unique spaces of care and rights, including through the training of local men and women.

Restoring spaces for peace, from the ground up, is among the most democratic and non-negotiable actions we have left to take. The normalisation of war begins when language shifts, and becomes part of the everyday. We reject this normalisation, and the notion that war is an inevitable choice.

In the following pages you will find a report on our activities which reflects our stance in the world: we believe in humanity, dedicating ourselves to the care of the human family as our practice, and to the protection of human rights as our guiding principle.