New Zealand Red Cross is deeply concerned by the recent escalation of hostilities in parts of the Middle East, as well as rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In recent days, intense monsoon rains and a series of powerful storms have caused widespread flooding and landslides across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. Rivers have burst their banks, entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed, and families have had to flee at short notice as water levels rose rapidly. Tragically, more than 1,400 people have lost their lives, with many still unaccounted for and millions affected across the region.

With much of Gaza’s health infrastructure destroyed, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sent a tented 60-bed field hospital, now expanded to 110 beds. While originally designed to run self-sufficiently for only four months, it’s been operating since May 2024.

Driven by a desire to help vulnerable people, for the international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement our Fundamental Principles are enduring values that inform everything that we do.

This year marks 80 years since nuclear weapons were used in the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the decades since, people from across the world — as well as our international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement — have organised in opposition to the indiscriminate and immensely destructive force of these weapons.