"What is very worrying is that there has been a 45% increase in the number of armed conflict situations in Africa since 2020," said Gilles Carbonnier, in an interview with the France-Presse news agency (AFP).

These more than 50 active armed conflict situations in Africa, which represent about 40% of the world's total conflicts, have displaced around 35 million people on the continent, that is, "almost half of the displaced people" worldwide, said the ICRC vice-president.

And while "the needs are enormous," the ICRC, like other humanitarian organizations, faces a decline in international aid funding, said Gilles Carbonnier.

The causes include the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by US President Donald Trump and the reduction in funding from countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU).

In July, an international study revealed that the collapse of US funding for international aid could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 among the most vulnerable, including a third of children.

"This forces us to make very difficult decisions, in which we have to reduce, or even cease, some of our operations to prioritize others," he further emphasized. For the ICRC vice-president, the most "worrying" situation is in Sudan, which has been plunged into civil war since April 2023.

Clashes between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have caused tens of thousands of deaths, displaced around 12 million people and caused what the United Nations (UN) describes as the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”.

In the country, “the health system is largely destroyed,” Carbonnier stressed, expressing his concern about the resurgence of epidemics, namely cholera and dengue fever.

The official also lamented a "resurgence of hostilities" in Somalia, a Horn of Africa country facing attacks by Al-Shebab terrorists, as well as in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where violence has intensified since January with the capture of the major cities of Goma and Bukavu by the armed group M23, allegedly supported by Rwanda.