Overview
- Nearly 100 days after the Feb. 28 US‑Israeli strikes that triggered the conflict, UNICEF says the war has driven up transport costs and delayed some aid deliveries by as much as six months.
- Insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz has pushed shipping to detours around the Cape of Good Hope, which adds two to four weeks to voyages and is causing port congestion at hubs such as Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.
- Air freight capacity is now tight and UNICEF nearly exhausted annual donated charter flights in the first quarter, while vaccine airfreight from India to parts of Africa has risen 50 to 70 percent.
- Rising costs are producing concrete budget hits: Mali’s transport bill rose 36 percent, trucking for therapeutic food jumped about 30 percent, and rerouting syringes for a Nigerian polio campaign added $200,000.
- The United Nations warns that even if the war stopped immediately, global humanitarian supply lines would not recover before 2027, increasing risks to responses for Ebola, polio and nutrition programmes across Africa.