The UN World Health Organization (WHO) is just one of the UN agencies working to help the most vulnerable in worst-hit central areas, but much more help is needed.
“When it rains, they can’t sleep, and when the rain stops, they still can’t sleep because they feared the wind might have their only shelter away,” said Dr Thushara Fernando, WHO representative in Myanmar.
In an update from Yangon, the WHO medic warned that the risk of waterborne disease “is becoming a reality” for all those still living under plastic sheeting with stagnant water all around.
A cholera outbreak was already reported in Mandalay just a few months ago.
Survivors “feed their babies, they eat, they drink in their tents; they don’t have even a simple mosquito net to sleep under in the night,” Dr Fernando continued.
“Water sources are contaminated, temporary toilet facilities are overwhelmed, and acute watery diarrhoea has been reported in two areas,” he continued.
Two major earthquakes hit central Myanmar on 28 March killing at least 3,700 people. About 5,100 more were injured and 114 are still missing, according to WHO. The true toll is likely much higher because of underreporting.
Survivors and aid teams have experienced more than 140 aftershocks – some as high as magnitude 5.9 – which have added to widespread trauma and impeded humanitarian assistance.
To help, the UN health agency has delivered around 170 tonnes of emergency medical supplies to help 450,000 people for three months.
WHO is also coordinating more than 220 emergency medical teams in earthquake affected areas and it has launched a targeted dengue prevention initiative in coordination with national and local partners.
This includes the distribution of about 4,500 rapid diagnostic test kits for frontline responders and hundreds of insecticide-treated nets to protect people in the hardest-hit areas, such as Mandalay.
The March 2025 earthquake caused widespread destruction Mandalay.
Critical moment
The WHO medic said that the agency continues to help deliver a range of services, albeit at a “very limited” scale. This includes trauma care, mental health and psychosocial support, along with maternal and child health services and non-communicable disease prevention.
“Without urgent, sustained funding, the risks of secondary health crises will erupt,” said Dr Fernando.
Echoing those concerns, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted that early signs of acute watery diarrhoea “are already emerging” in worst-hit areas.
Access to food and essential services have been disrupted, causing worsening nutrition conditions, “especially for young children”, the UN agency’s Eliana Drakopoulos told UN News.
“With low immunization coverage and the monsoon approaching, the risk of preventable disease outbreaks is rising fast,” Ms. Drakopoulos added. “Urgent action is needed.”
The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published new draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) that define when crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) have to appoint a central contact point. A central contact point can be an important tool in the fight against financial crime.
CASPs established in one EU Member State can provide services in another EU Member State. In some cases, where they have a local ‘establishment’, for example a crypto ATM, they must comply with local anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations as well as those that apply in the home Member State. In those situations, central contact points can help mitigate the money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks associated with the cross-border provision of crypto asset services and facilitate adequate AML/CFT supervision and oversight.
The draft RTS set out:
The conditions under which CASPs should appoint a central contact point; and
The roles and responsibilities of that central contact point.
In line with the EBA’s legal mandate, the draft RTS do not define the form a central contact point should take, or where in the EU it should be based.
Legal basis, background
Article 45(10) of Directive (EU) 2015/849 requires the EBA to develop RTS setting out the criteria for determining the circumstances in which the appointment of a central contact point is appropriate, and the functions of the central contact points.
A first version of such draft regulatory standards was issued in 2017. This Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1108 was published in the Official Journal of the EU in 2018. The scope was limited to Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs).
Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets applies from 30 December 2024. It amends Directive (EU) 2015/849, inter alia by extending its scope to crypto-asset service providers. Consequently, Article 45(9) of this Directive extends provisions that Member States may require EMIs and PSPs established on their territory in forms other than a branch, and whose head office is situated in another Member State, to appoint a CCP point in their territory to CASPs. This means that the EBA has to update the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1108.
On the southern edge of Tirana, the Albanian capital, where the concrete blocks of the city give way to hills and scattered olive groves, there is a place that seems oddly suspended in time. A low, whitewashed building with arched colonnades and a modest green dome houses the world headquarters of the Bektashi Order—a Sufi tradition within Islam known for its open-mindedness and mystical spirit. Here, amid the drifting scent of incense and the murmur of prayers, one man quietly tends to the task of repairing the invisible threads that tie humanity together. He is Baba Mondi, born Edmond Brahimaj, and for the past decade, he has served as the eighth Dedebaba, the global spiritual leader of the Bektashi community.
At sixty-six, Baba Mondi carries himself with the stillness of someone who has made peace not only with the world but with its inevitable contradictions. His white beard, full but neatly trimmed, frames a face marked more by kindness than by the stern authority often associated with religious leadership. When he speaks, it is softly, deliberately, often punctuated by long silences that seem less like hesitations and more like invitations—to listen more carefully, to think more deeply.
He was not always a man of the spirit. Born in 1959 in Vlorë, a city where the Mediterranean light seems to bleach even the harshest memories, he grew up under Enver Hoxha’s atheistic dictatorship. Religion, in the Albania of his youth, was not merely frowned upon; it was outlawed. Crosses were torn down, mosques shuttered, imams and priests sent to labor camps. Edmond, like most of his generation, found a sanctioned path in the military. He graduated from the Albanian Military Academy, entered the People’s Army, and for a time lived the rigid, joyless life of a socialist officer.
But when communism collapsed in the early 1990s, the old faiths, buried but not broken, stirred to life again. The Bektashi Order, which had survived clandestinely in the countryside and in diaspora, resurfaced. It was during this great unburying that Edmond Brahimaj felt a different kind of calling. He entered the Bektashi path in 1992, was initiated as a dervish in 1996, and gradually, almost inevitably, rose to prominence within the order.
The Bektashis are an oddity within the Islamic world, and perhaps that is precisely why Baba Mondi has found a growing audience beyond it. Their tradition, born out of 13th-century Anatolia, embraces mysticism, metaphor, poetry. They venerate both the Prophet Muhammad and Ali, but also figures like Jesus and even non-Muslim saints. For them, faith is not about strict adherence to law but about the refinement of the soul. Wine, poetry, music—all forbidden in more puritanical interpretations of Islam—are considered doors to the divine.
Baba Mondi the day of his election in 2011
Under Baba Mondi’s leadership, the Bektashi Order has leaned into this open-heartedness, offering a living counterpoint to the narrative that Islam must inevitably be austere or severe. His headquarters has become a quiet hub of interreligious dialogue, where imams, priests, rabbis, and secular scholars meet, talk, and, just as often, share a glass of homemade raki.
The core of his message is disarmingly simple: religions are many, but humanity is one. “We all worship the same God,” he often says, “even if we call Him by different names.”
This might sound platitudinous were it not for the urgency behind it. In a world increasingly defined by religious polarization, Baba Mondi’s voice is a reminder that coexistence is not a utopian dream but a lived reality—one that Albania itself, with its long tradition of Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic communities cohabiting peacefully, exemplifies.
Still, coexistence is not passivity. Baba Mondi’s tenure has seen the Bektashi Order more actively engaged in international religious diplomacy than ever before. He has met with Pope Francis in Rome, the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, and Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. His travels are less about formalities than about building an informal, personal network of trust among the world’s faiths—a kind of invisible fraternity of those who still believe that dialogue matters.
At home, he has faced more tangible threats. In neighboring North Macedonia, where Bektashi shrines have been seized and vandalized by Wahhabi-influenced groups, the Order’s distinctive openness has made it a target. Yet even in the face of extremism, Baba Mondi’s response has been characteristically measured: he condemns violence not with outrage, but with sorrow, framing it as a tragic failure of understanding rather than an act of cosmic enmity.
In recent years, Baba Mondi has embarked on a project that, if successful, could cement his legacy far beyond Albania. With the support of Prime Minister Edi Rama, he has championed the idea of granting the Bektashi headquarters sovereign status—creating a “Muslim Vatican” at the heart of Tirana. The idea is ambitious, almost audacious: a microstate of 0.11 square kilometers dedicated not to a political cause, but to the preservation and promotion of a tolerant, mystical Islam.
To the skeptics who see in it an unnecessary complication, Baba Mondi offers a gentle but firm correction: this is not about power, but about sanctuary. “We must create a space where faith can breathe,” he says, “away from politics, away from violence, away from fear.”
The microstate would serve as a center for interfaith education, scholarship, and pilgrimage. It would be, in his words, “a light for those who seek God through love, not fear.”
Whether this vision will come to pass remains uncertain. The politics of the Balkans are notoriously labyrinthine, and the idea of creating a new sovereign entity, even a spiritual one, is fraught with logistical and diplomatic hurdles. But Baba Mondi seems unbothered by the obstacles. For him, the attempt itself is part of the work: to keep building, stone by stone, a house spacious enough for all faiths.
When he speaks to young people—many of whom, in Albania as elsewhere, are increasingly secular—his message is not one of scolding or recrimination. Instead, he urges them to rediscover a spirituality that is not about fear or obedience, but about the cultivation of wonder, humility, and gratitude. “The real tekke,” he tells them, “is the heart.”
It is a small but radical idea: that faith is not an institution, not a doctrine, but a quality of the soul, accessible to anyone, anywhere.
Late in the afternoon, as the call to prayer echoes softly across the compound, Baba Mondi can often be found sitting quietly in the courtyard, greeting visitors without ceremony. There is no retinue, no armored car, no air of untouchability. Instead, there is a kind of porousness about him, as if he were less a man than a medium—through whom old wisdoms and ancient hopes still try, against all odds, to make themselves heard.
In a century marked by religious revival and religious war, by the spectacular failures of both militant atheism and militant faith, Baba Mondi’s slow, stubborn vision feels almost revolutionary. It is a revolution conducted without slogans, without swords—only by the patient work of conversation, hospitality, and prayer.
He knows, of course, that he will not live to see the full fruits of what he is planting. But that has never been the point. In the Bektashi tradition, what matters is not the outcome, but the offering: a life made into a bridge, a door, a light.
And so, each day, in a small corner of Tirana, while the world rushes and clamors and fractures, Baba Mondi sits quietly, tending to the work of peace as one tends to a garden—not expecting it to bloom tomorrow, but knowing that someday, somewhere, it will.
Speaking in Port Sudan after a visit to Khartoum, Samantha Chattaraj, Emergency Coordinator for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in Sudan, said that “vast parts of the city are destroyed. Levels of hunger and desperation are extremely high,” but she added “people remain hopeful.”
Sudan is currently the only country in the world where famine has been officially confirmed.
Half of its population is facing extreme hunger, and nearly five million children and breastfeeding mothers are severely malnourished.
Ms. Chattaraj said that in March, WFP was able to reach four million people across Sudan, the highest number since the conflict broke out over two years ago.
“This marked an important step in getting food to people who have been cut off from aid for a long time,” she added.
However, she added that “the need is far greater. With 27 areas either in famine or at high risk, the recent progress still covers only a small part of what’s required to stop the crisis.”
In Darfur, in the west of Sudan, nearly 450,00 people who were already facing famine and horrific levels of violence have been forced to flee from El Fasher and Zamzam camps in the last few weeks, amidst an increase in fighting.
“Reports from the ground are shocking,” said Mrs Chattaraj, explaining that WFP is currently mobilising assistance to reach populations wherever they have fled to – across various parts of Darfur and Northern State.
Planning for returnees
Many people are expected to return to Khartoum in the coming monthsandWFP is working to strengthen its presence in the city and ensure it can deliver food regularly to those coming back.
Together with local authorities, the UN aims to provide emergency food aid to one million people in the greater Khartoum area next month.
Racing against the rain
Ahead of the rainy season set to begin in June, which will leave many routes across Darfur impracticable, WFP only has a few weeks to pre-stock food close to populations in need, Ms. Chattaraj said.
In preparation WFP is setting up mobile warehouses across Darfur to safely store food supplies and keep operations running even during the rains.
Meanwhile, around 100,000 people remain trapped in the besieged city of El Fasher.
WFP is urgently calling for more funding and safe access to areas in need so it can continue its work in what is now the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
In March 2025, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, continued to lead the way in securing Europe’s borders, with a strong focus on leadership development and maritime security.
On 27, 28 and 29 April, the President of the European Council António Costa will travel to Bulgaria to meet with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Rossen Jeliazkov to discuss key EU priorities, regional stability, and the importance of coordinated action to tackle shared challenges. President Costa will also meet President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev. The President will take the opportunity to visit, together with Prime Minister Jeliazkov, several important industrial and technological centres.
On 27, 28 and 29 April, the President of the European Council António Costa will travel to Bulgaria to meet with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Rossen Jeliazkov to discuss key EU priorities, regional stability, and the importance of coordinated action to tackle shared challenges. President Costa will also meet President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev. […]
“We’re pushed to our limits,” said Ayaki Ito, Director for Emergencies for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
One mother was so desperate to reach safety she crossed the 100-metre wide Rusizi river separating DRC and Burundi with her three small children and their belongings, Mr. Ito told journalists in Geneva:
“I saw this plastic sheeting ball – it’s one mother and three small children – she put her belongings and wrapped it with a plastic sheet, to make it float…It’s a very perilous journey and I was told it’s full of crocodile and hippos.”
Since January, more than 71,000 people have crossed into Burundi, fleeing ongoing violence in eastern DRC, UNHCR data shows. Since then, more than 12,300 have been relocated to Musenyi refugee site, while others live with host communities in border areas.
Living conditions in Musenyi – five hours’ drive from the DRC border – are becoming unsustainable.
The site today houses 16,000 people although it was designed for 3,000, adding to tensions. “Food rations are already cut to half of what they’re supposed to be,” Mr. Ito explained, warning that even these rations will run out by the end of June without additional funding.
Food is far from the only concern, however, as emergency tents set up on lowland farming areas have now flooded during the onset of the rainy season.
Aid teams are already bracing themselves for diseases to spike.
People who fled violence in DR Congo to Burundi use a water point at a refugee camp in Cibitoke Province.
“Schools, clinics, basic sanitation systems are either non-existent or overwhelmed” and the UN agency has no more dignity kits, leaving nearly 11,000 women and girls with access to basic hygiene items, Mr. Ito said.
Funding crisis cutbacks
UNHCR’s funding crisis has also “severely reduced” support for family tracing, making it increasingly difficult to identify, locate, and reunite separated children with their families.
There are currently no child-friendly or women-friendly spaces where groups can gather for services and peer support in key hosting areas, Mr. Ito added.
Confronted with the catastrophic living conditions in Burundi and ongoing violent clashes in eastern DRC between Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and government forces, refugees often move back and forth between the two countries. “Nearly half of last week’s registered 700 arriving refugees have been previously registered in Burundi,” the UN official said, pointing out that Congolese refugees are among the most vulnerable in the world.
Citing reduced resources and operational challenges, the UN agency insisted that the delivery of lifesaving aid and protection services remains a priority. This includes additional support amid a 60 per cent increase in reported sexual violence cases, most involving rape in the DRC.
“This balancing act is becoming increasingly impossible, with teams on the ground running a full-scale emergency response, responding to the needs of existing refugees in the country and preparing for future arrivals while also facing pressure to reduce their operations because of funding shortages,” Mr. Ito said.
