On October 30, 2007, Oxfam reported that 39 NGOs warned of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Somalia and an impending humanitarian catastrophe. Since then, the crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease; 360,000 people have been newly displaced and an additional half a million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance.

Attacks on, and killings of, aid workers, the looting of relief supplies, and a lack of respect for international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict have left two million Somalis in need of basic humanitarian assistance.

In 2009 humanitarian relief personnel have been kidnapped and/or been killed in Gaza, Yemen, Chechnya, Zanzibar and Pakistan.