Armed groups control large swaths of Port-au-Prince, forcing more than 1.4 million people from their homes and cutting access to food, health, water and education services.

Half the population is not getting enough to eat, and malnutrition among children is rising sharply. Humanitarian efforts are hampered by insecurity and blocked access routes.

According to the UN, six million people of Haiti’s population of around 11.4 million need some form of humanitarian assistance in 2026.

Why funding Haiti matters

Funding for humanitarian aid in Haiti is a lifeline for millions. The UN’s 2026 Humanitarian Response Plan seeks $880 million to assist 4.2 million of those six million vulnerable people, covering emergency food, shelter, protection, health and education services.

Without these resources, basic lifesaving operations, such as nutrition support for children and protection services for women and girls, cannot reach all of those in need.

UN agencies stress that sufficient donor funds are essential not only to save lives but to stabilise communities torn apart by violence and displacement.

Violence by armed groups has forced 1.4 million people, or 12 per cent of the population, to flee their homes.

Mass displacement has left children without education, healthcare, or safety.

What is the UN saying?

The UN’s most senior humanitarian official in the Caribbean country, Nicole Boni Kouassi, said that said the high level of funding was needed “to preserve the life and dignity of every Haitian, and to keep hope alive for younger generations.” 

Speaking to donors in August 2025, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres said “Haiti remains shamefully overlooked and woefully underfunded.”

What services have been reduced?

• Significant cuts to food security services, leaving many people without regular food assistance as food insecurity rises nationwide.
• Access to drinking water curtailed, with reductions in water distribution and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) services.
• Primary healthcare services scaled back, including community‑level health support and clinical services.
• Education-related humanitarian support reduced, affecting children already impacted by school closures and displacement.
• Protection services restricted, including programs addressing gender‑based violence, child protection, and support for survivors.

Why funding has been so difficult to raise

Despite the scale of need, Haiti’s humanitarian appeal is among the least funded crises in the world. For 2025, the UN sought $908 million but received only 24 per cent of that target.

Competing global crises and donor fatigue, together with attention on other emergencies, including in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, have left Haiti’s requirements under-resourced.

Funding shortfalls also jeopardize essential operations, such as humanitarian air services that are often the only means of reaching isolated communities.

The result: agencies are forced to prioritize the most urgent cases while many go without assistance.

Regional or international consequences of not funding humanitarian aid in Haiti

Failing to fully fund Haiti’s humanitarian response risks broader instability beyond its borders.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that unchecked violence, mass displacement and lack of basic services could fuel:

• Irregular migration
• Heighten pressures on neighbouring countries
• Undermine regional economic and security cooperation

Prolonged instability also increases the likelihood of secondary crises, such as public health emergencies and cross-border crime, with ripple effects across the Caribbean and the Americas.

In this context, donor engagement is framed as investment in regional resilience.

What happens next?

In late 2025, the UN officially launched Haiti’s 2026 Humanitarian Response Plan, calling on governments and partners to step up commitments to preserve life and dignity amidst violence and deprivation.

If funding and access improve, aid agencies aim to expand food support, restore basic services, enhance protection for vulnerable groups, and create more resilient pathways to longer-term recovery.

But without stronger financial backing and security improvements, millions of Haitians face increasingly desperate conditions — and humanitarian needs are likely to deepen.

At the beginning of February, the 2026 appeal was less than four per cent funded.

At a time when global airpower debates are dominated by fifth-generation fighters, stealth drones and artificial intelligence–enabled battle networks, India’s decision to secure more than 20 decommissioned SEPECAT Jaguar fighter-bombers from Oman highlights a different but no less consequential strategic reality: combat effectiveness is sustained as much by logistics, availability and readiness as by technological novelty. Rather than inducting additional airframes, New Delhi’s agreement with Muscat is focused squarely on harvesting critical spare parts to preserve the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) deep-penetration strike capability amid mounting regional pressures and persistent procurement delays.

The arrangement reflects a sober assessment of India’s current force-structure challenges. With fighter squadron strength hovering at around 29 against an authorised level of 42, the IAF is operating at its lowest numerical strength since the early 1960s. In this constrained environment, sustaining combat readiness increasingly depends on creative lifecycle management rather than rapid fleet replacement. The Jaguar transfer from Oman is therefore less about nostalgia for a Cold War–era aircraft and more about pragmatic force preservation in a volatile security environment.

India today is the world’s sole remaining operator of the SEPECAT Jaguar, a circumstance that places unique logistical and industrial burdens on the IAF. The aircraft’s original production ecosystem disappeared years ago, forcing India to rely on a combination of indigenous upgrades, limited global suppliers and the cannibalisation of retired airframes to keep the fleet operational. Against this backdrop, the availability of Oman’s retired Jaguars—complete with compatible engines, avionics and structural components—represents a rare and strategically valuable opportunity to stabilise fleet sustainment.

The India–Oman agreement, formalised during the 13th Joint Military Cooperation Committee meeting in November 2025, illustrates how defence diplomacy can be translated directly into operational resilience. More than 20 Jaguars will be selectively dismantled in Oman, with only high-value components shipped to India. Officials involved in the process have emphasised that transporting entire airframes would be inefficient and unnecessary, given that the objective is to alleviate specific spare-part shortages rather than expand the fleet numerically. This targeted approach mirrors India’s earlier acquisition of retired French Jaguars in 2018–2019 and reflects a maturing philosophy of cost-effective sustainment.

The strategic significance of the deal becomes clearer when placed in historical and doctrinal context. The SEPECAT Jaguar emerged from a rare convergence of European aerospace ambition in the 1960s, when France’s Breguet Aviation and the United Kingdom’s British Aircraft Corporation joined forces to design a rugged, survivable strike aircraft optimised for low-level penetration. Powered by twin Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour turbofan engines, the Jaguar was built to operate from semi-prepared forward airstrips and to survive in heavily defended airspace through speed, terrain masking and structural robustness.

Operational history validated these design choices. Jaguars flew combat missions across Africa, the Middle East and during the 1991 Gulf War, earning a reputation for reliability under hostile conditions. For India, the aircraft’s selection in 1978 as the Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft marked a doctrinal leap. It signalled a shift toward survivable, precision-oriented strike operations at a time when South Asia’s strategic environment was becoming increasingly complex.

The initial acquisition of ex-RAF Jaguars was followed by a landmark licensed production agreement with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which assembled around 128 aircraft between 1982 and 2008. Including imported units, India inducted more than 160 Jaguars, encompassing specialised maritime strike variants tailored for anti-shipping operations. Known locally as the “Shamsher,” the Jaguar became deeply embedded in the IAF’s strike doctrine and institutional culture.

That legacy was cemented during the 1999 Kargil conflict, when Jaguars delivered laser-guided munitions against hardened targets in challenging high-altitude terrain. Their performance reinforced confidence in the platform’s precision-strike credentials and ensured its continued relevance well into the 21st century.

Crucially, the Jaguar’s longevity in Indian service has been underwritten by successive modernisation programmes rather than static preservation. The Display Attack Ranging Inertial Navigation (DARIN) upgrades progressively transformed a 1970s-era airframe into a digitally networked strike platform. DARIN I introduced modern inertial navigation and attack systems, while DARIN II added advanced avionics, head-up displays and improved radar functionality. The ongoing DARIN III upgrade represents the most ambitious transformation yet, equipping selected Jaguars with the Elta EL/M-2052 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, advanced electronic warfare suites, glass cockpits and helmet-mounted cueing systems.

These enhancements allow the Jaguar to operate as a sensor-shooter node within India’s network-centric warfare architecture, integrating seamlessly with Su-30MKI fighters, Rafales and airborne early warning assets. The aircraft’s compatibility with standoff weapons, including maritime strike munitions such as the AGM-84 Harpoon Block II, further extends its operational relevance in the Arabian Sea and northern Indian Ocean.

Despite these upgrades, the Jaguar fleet faces the inevitable challenges of age. Many airframes are now more than 45 years old, and global support has steadily diminished since production ended in 2008. The IAF currently operates roughly 115–120 Jaguars across six squadrons, a numerically significant force that is nevertheless operationally fragile. Several crashes in recent years have underscored the risks associated with sustaining aging platforms, intensifying scrutiny of maintenance practices and spare-part availability.

It is within this context that Oman’s retired Jaguar fleet assumes critical importance. The Royal Air Force of Oman inducted its Jaguars in 1977 and retired them in 2014, leaving an estimated 14 intact airframes at the time of withdrawal. Despite minor configuration differences, these aircraft share substantial design commonality with Indian variants, making them an invaluable source of compatible components. Their operational history—including demanding maritime missions—further attests to the durability of their systems and structures.

From a fiscal standpoint, the India–Oman transfer offers exceptional value. Sustaining existing Jaguars through spare-part acquisition preserves billions of dollars’ worth of operational capability at a fraction of the cost of procuring new fighters. With a single modern multirole aircraft typically priced between USD 80 million and USD 120 million, the economic logic of extending the life of proven platforms becomes compelling, particularly in an era of stretched defence budgets and long production lead times.

Strategically, the deal also strengthens India’s defence relationship with Oman, a key Gulf partner whose geography gives it outsized importance in the Arabian Sea and near the Strait of Hormuz. The transfer reinforces India’s growing security footprint in the region while underscoring Muscat’s role as a pragmatic and reliable defence partner.

More broadly, the Jaguar sustainment strategy highlights an emerging global trend toward sustainable military logistics. As supply chains become increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical disruption, air forces are rediscovering the strategic value of lifecycle management, redundancy and diplomatic sourcing of critical components. India’s approach demonstrates that legacy platforms, when intelligently modernised and supported, can continue to shape operational outcomes even in an era dominated by stealth and unmanned systems.

Ultimately, the India–Oman Jaguar arrangement is a case study in strategic pragmatism. It underscores the enduring truth that airpower effectiveness is defined not by generational labels alone, but by availability, readiness and integration into a wider battlespace. By converting diplomatic capital into operational resilience, New Delhi is buying critical time for indigenous programmes such as the Tejas Mk1A, Tejas Mk2 and the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft to mature without creating exploitable capability gaps.

In preserving the Shamsher’s operational edge, India signals that adaptive force management—rather than symbolic modernisation—remains central to credible deterrence. In a contested Indo-Pacific environment marked by rapid military modernisation and persistent regional tensions, sustaining proven strike assets is not a sign of stagnation, but an expression of strategic maturity.

In the modest, mountainous town of Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan, schoolteacher Nur Akhmatov watches intently as workers lift beams into place. What rises before him is more than just a building — it is a symbol of transformation. A new library, conference hall, and women’s sports centre are taking shape, largely thanks to the money sent home by migrant workers laboring in Russia.

This local project, though small in scale, encapsulates a vast and growing regional reality: remittances — money sent by Central Asians working abroad — are not only sustaining families but shaping the physical and economic landscape of entire communities. From the dusty plains of Tajikistan to the dense suburbs of Tashkent, these transfers are funding schools, roads, health centres, and sports facilities, at a scale that dwarfs traditional foreign aid or government funding.

According to the World Bank, 2024 marked a historic year for remittances in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan received a record $3 billion, equal to about a quarter of its gross domestic product (GDP). Tajikistan, with $6 billion in remittances, topped the global list relative to GDP — nearly 50 percent of its economy was sustained by these inflows. Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s largest nation by population, recorded $14.8 billion in remittances, contributing around 14 percent to its GDP.

As remittances surged, so too did hope — and ambition — in regions long mired in poverty and underdevelopment.

In Batken, where the average monthly wage hovers around $235, small donations can go far. “When I worked in Moscow, I donated 300 som ($3) a month,” said Akhmatov, now back home and overseeing the construction project. That monthly contribution — modest by any standard — is mirrored by thousands of others. In total, Akhmatov estimates around 1,500 migrants contributed to a recent project to build a new school.

Teacher Abazbek Abdinabiyev beams with pride as he shows off a newly completed indoor sports court. Painted in vibrant blues and yellows, the court now hosts children who once played barefoot in the dust.

“The contribution made by migrants has been enormous,” Abdinabiyev said. “Despite being far away, they have all helped to ensure that their children and brothers could have this opportunity.”

In neighboring Tajikistan, similar scenes are unfolding. In the northern town of Mehrobod, community members are coordinating roadwork, school construction, and even bridge building, financed almost entirely by emigrants’ savings. A government banner stretched over the main road declares, “Beautifying the country is the duty of every citizen.”

Abdukakhor Majidov, a local fundraiser in the town, says the model is simple: each district solves its own problems. “As soon as one street is repaired, we move on to the next,” he said.

These projects are not just infrastructure — they’re a lifeline for rural communities whose governments lack the resources to fund local development. The Kyrgyz government has acknowledged this directly, estimating that without remittances, the national poverty rate would spike from 29 percent to 41 percent.

Yet this economic lifeline is not without risks. For over two decades, Russia has served as the primary destination for Central Asian migrant workers, offering jobs in construction, transport, manufacturing, and services. The remittance boom in 2024 is largely attributed to Russia’s booming wartime economy, driven by surging arms production and infrastructure projects tied to its ongoing war in Ukraine.

But even as job openings proliferate in Russia, many Central Asians now view the country as a place of danger and instability. The war has not only reshaped Russia’s domestic labor needs, but also its policies toward migrants.

Moscow has faced criticism from its Central Asian allies over what appears to be a growing practice of recruiting or pressuring naturalized migrants into military service. In May 2025, Russian authorities confirmed that over 20,000 Central Asians who had received citizenship were now serving in the Russian army. Although some may have enlisted willingly, human rights groups and regional leaders worry that economic coercion or administrative threats are being used to push migrants into uniform.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon recently alluded to the growing concern in a national address, referencing “hundreds of repatriated coffins” from Russia — men who, he said, had “left to earn bread for their families.” Without directly naming Russia or the Ukraine war, his message was clear: Tajikistan is paying a human price for its economic dependence on Russia.

The situation worsened following the March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow — Russia’s deadliest such incident in 20 years — in which over 140 people were killed. Russian authorities arrested four Tajik nationals as suspects, and while their involvement remains under investigation, the event triggered an eruption of anti-migrant sentiment across the country.

Sweeping security raids, mass detentions, and a spike in street-level harassment followed. The Russian government responded by tightening immigration rules and expanding powers to expel foreign workers. Thousands were detained for minor infractions — expired registration documents, failure to update addresses, or traffic violations. Critics say these laws are being selectively enforced against Central Asians.

Kadyrbek Tashimbekov, a 29-year-old from Kyrgyzstan, is among the nearly 300,000 Kyrgyz migrants who have left Russia since 2023 — either expelled or by personal choice. “I was expelled after working there for eight years,” he said. Now, back in Batken, Tashimbekov has found work operating a crane on the new school site.

Back in Kyrgyzstan, President Sadyr Japarov has pledged to reverse the tide of emigration. His administration has launched incentives to encourage skilled workers to return — offering subsidized loans, tax breaks for returning entrepreneurs, and rural development grants. Public messaging now encourages patriotic investment in local communities.

“We are building this with the hope that if we have such centres, we will train them in the right professions, guide them,” said Akhmatov. “And maybe there will be less emigration.”

It is a delicate balance: Central Asian economies depend deeply on the money migrants send home — yet their overreliance on a single, unstable partner (Russia) leaves them vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and domestic crises.

To break that cycle, experts say governments must shift from survival-mode remittance dependency to sustainable domestic development. That means building local job markets, strengthening educational institutions, and investing in small business ecosystems.

There are signs of hope. In 2024, Kyrgyzstan recorded its highest rate of small business registration since independence, with returning migrants starting food services, IT businesses, and construction firms. In Uzbekistan, remittance-financed start-ups in renewable energy and textile manufacturing are beginning to scale.

Moreover, the relative decline of the Kyrgyz and Tajik somoni against the Russian ruble has paradoxically increased the real value of remittances, giving returnees greater purchasing power at home. In Mehrobod, Majidov says the money now stretches further than ever before.

With Russia’s role as a migration hub facing increasing scrutiny, some Central Asian governments are exploring alternative labor destinations. Kazakhstan, Turkey, South Korea, and even Gulf nations like Qatar have been floated as potential partners for temporary labor programs. Yet these relationships are still in their infancy and unlikely to replace the volume and convenience of the Russian pipeline.

Regional cooperation may hold part of the solution. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), of which Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are members, offers some freedom of labor movement. There is growing interest in expanding such arrangements to minimize dependency on Russia and create a more resilient migration strategy.

But the true change, say locals like Abdinabiyev and Tashimbekov, must begin at home — with each returning worker investing not just in their village’s buildings, but in its future.

As the walls of Batken’s new school rise higher, the air rings with the noise of construction — saws, drills, shouted instructions. It is the sound of a society being rebuilt — not by politicians or foreign donors, but by the very people who once had to leave it behind.

“We went abroad to survive,” said Tashimbekov, pausing his crane. “Now we are home, and we want to build something better.”

“My team — my friends — are the reason I stand where I am today.

This will, inevitably, evolve into a homage to them, but also to the Gaza I was so fortunate to know. Those who have known Gaza will understand exactly what I mean. The Gaza that existed before… before the unimaginable devastation that now eclipses its memory.

The first few months of this brutal war were a blur of emotional voice notes from friends saying goodbye, thinking they wouldn’t make it through the night. These desperate exchanges were followed by agonizing silence. Mona’s words still haunt me: “If we don’t meet again, remember me. Remember my son.” People fought to survive, cut from connection not only with each other and their families, but also the outside world – who were scouring news and social media for any updates.

Mohammed’s daughter Sama was born October 31 2023 in Gaza City. Ambulances were overwhelmed, responding to casualties from bombings, he had to evade strikes to get his wife to a hospital. She gave birth surrounded by death. A few weeks later, my colleague’s four-year-old daughter, Salma, was shot in the neck by Israeli forces as the family were trying to flee Gaza city. She died in his arms in the street. The pain is permanently etched on his face.

‘They’re shooting at us in the courtyard’

At the start of this year, we lost contact with Hussein for a week, when the UN facility his family were sheltering in, was besieged, surrounded by tanks, trapping over 40,000 people inside. The last message we got from him: “they’re shooting at us in the courtyard”. Ambulances and emergency teams were denied access. When we finally got through to him again, he was burying the bodies of those killed, including children, in the courtyard.

Some of the most impactful footage of this war was taken by my colleague Abdallah. In February, Abdallah was hit in a strike while documenting northern Gaza. On a Saturday afternoon, we were informed he had been killed. I remember so vividly the air leaving my lungs, and not being able to re-fill them. By Monday, someone had found Abdallah in a hospital – alive, with both his legs amputated. Soon after, we lost contact with him for fourteen long days, while doctors fought to keep him alive in Al-Shifa, as the entire hospital came under Israeli siege. Miraculously, after 4 attempts, the UN eventually reached him

And then there was April. I was finally permitted entry to Gaza, for the first time since the war began. The first place I visited was a field hospital in Rafah, where Abdallah was barely being kept alive. It was a tent in the sand. Doctors informed us he only had days to live, because they did not have the equipment or medicine necessary to treat him further. My two colleagues with matching blood types donated their blood on the spot, just to keep him alive. Two long months after being hit, Abdallah was approved medical evacuation, mere days before the Rafah crossing was closed permanently. To this day, it is hard to believe he survived.

In May, everything fell apart in front of our eyes. The joy we shared to be reunited and the relief Abdallah was safe was short lived, as military incursions in Rafah began. It was chaos, panic, and terror. I was stunned to witness, first-hand, over a million people being forcibly displaced from a confined area in just a matter of days. One of the first people I knew to flee Rafah was Jamal. He followed instructions from forced evacuation notes dropped from the sky, and moved his family to Deir al Balah. That same night, he was killed by an Israeli strike, while sleeping with his family. 

Is the world still looking?

One of the last people I knew to flee Rafah was Mohammad. He wore a heavy, unspoken fear and denial of what was happening around us. Echoes of “but where do we go” filled every anxious look and conversation. Mohammad stayed until that night – the night a headless child was pulled from a tent on fire after an Israeli strike – infamous because images circulated globally. All eyes on Rafah, they said. Outside it seemed, nobody knew or understood that this was every night… but the visuals don’t always make it out of people’s nightmares to play across the world media. The screams of children helplessly burning alive around Mohammad still play in his head every night.

If you have read this far, then you will know why I am here in Gaza. You will understand why my life has been on hold, to do what I can to spend time with my friends, and report on the continued horrors that have engulfed their lives. Report on the families who scream at us in despair, desperate for information on loved ones who have been detained for months. Report on the bodies we see of people around checkpoints, left to be eaten by packs of dogs. Report on toddlers in hospitals with missing limbs after strikes in “humanitarian zones”. Mona’s brother, killed. Hussein’s daughter, killed. Rajaa’s cousin, killed. Are you keeping up with the death? Because we’re not. Here, you’re considered lucky if you actually know if your family are alive.

The journalists on the ground – risking life and limb every day to show the world the horrors consuming their friends, their families, their neighbours. Is the world still looking? Did everyone outside get tired of hearing about children killed in every way possible: killed by strikes, killed buried under rubble, killed by malnutrition, killed by hospitals being bombed, killed by incubators shutting off without electricity, killed for simply existing. An entire society is now a graveyard, yet nobody has had the luxury to mourn, because they have to survive. Food, water, healthcare, safety – how is it possible that we are ending another year, and such basic needs continue to be deprived? 100 hostages are still in Gaza, their families desperately awaiting their return and news of their safety. Over two million people, trapped. They cannot escape. There is no way out.

For me, I will never forget singing happy birthday to baby Sama, now one years old – everyone united in their determination to be louder than the bombs falling around us, shaking the ground we stood. Her entire life, consumed and defined by the brutality of war.”