Call for humanitarian corridor through Strait of Hormuz as war in Iran hits vital aid | global development

The volatility of global oil prices caused by the US and Israel’s war against Iran takes a toll on the most vulnerable people by delaying or preventing food and medical aid from reaching them.

Now aid organizations are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to be opened through the Strait of Hormuz amid soaring transport costs.

Bob Kitchen, vice president for emergencies at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) called for “serious and immediate discussions on humanitarian corridors through the Strait of Hormuz, so that we can at least get supplies that are currently stuck in humanitarian hubs through the strait to resupply.”

Essential medicines do not make it out of key centres. Shipping disruptions prevented the IRC from accessing $130,000 (£96,000) of supplies in Dubai needed by 20,000 people in Sudan. In Nigeria and Ethiopia, government oil rationing meant the aid agency had to limit generator use in its health clinics. “In certain parts of hospitals we will have to turn off the electricity to keep more important things going (if it continues),” Kitchen said.

He said aid agencies were burning through budgets quickly. “It’s more expensive to buy fuel to run our operations, move commodities, move staff in many of the sub-Saharan countries. Africa,” he said.

Cecile Terraz, director at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said: “The reality here is that it is 100% certain that the rise in oil prices affects people’s lives and also our operations.”

Since the conflict began in February, oil prices have fluctuated and peaked almost $120 a barrel, up from $60 at the start of the year, as the US and Iran took turns closing and blocking the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel. Limiting the number of cargo ships passing through the 5km-wide passage has had an extraordinary global impact, reducing the global supply of oil, food, fertilizer and medicine and driving up the price of what is available. The current costs oil, a primary source of fuel, is nearly $111 a barrel.

Major aid agencies, still reeling from the US and Europe cuts in fundingis badly caught, because many humanitarian products, including food and medicine, are exported from hubs in India and Dubai to communities in need, many of which are in Africa.

Estimates by Save the Children found that every $5 increase per barrel of oil costs the charity an additional $340,000 a month in shipping costs, fuel, food and medical supplies beyond what was budgeted for at the beginning of the year. This was equivalent to a month’s aid for almost 40,000 children, said the agency’s director of global provision, Willem Zuidema. If oil prices stay around $100 for the rest of 2026, it will cost the charity an extra $27 million this year, he said.

The disruption meant 45 million more people could go hungry, according to the World Food Program (WFP), in addition to the 318 million people who were already considered food insecure before February’s attacks.

“We are being pushed from both sides. While world leaders are cutting aid budgets, conflict is driving up the cost of every shipment, every bag of food, every medical kit we send,” Zuidema said.

The US is cutting its foreign aid with 57% in 2025while the British aid was last year at its lowest since 2008. Norway, Germany and France have all cut their aid budgets.

In Yemen, where, after more than a decade of war, almost half the population needs aid, the cost of shipping goods with up to 20%due to fuel costs, according to Save the Children’s estimates. Food prices there have risen by 30%.

in SomaliaRobyn Savage, Care’s humanitarian director, said the cost of importing key medicines for acute malnutrition in children had tripled since the conflict began. “That means there is less medication available for those children, and that will lead to fewer children being treated,” she said.

The country, which is experiencing severe drought, has also seen the prices of basic foods rise by 20% as fuel prices drive up transport costs, according to the World Food Program (WFP).

In Myanmar, a basket of goods rose by 19%. And the cost of getting food in the country Afghanistan tripled says John Aylieff, the WFP’s country director in Afghanistan.

The WFP’s supply of fortified biscuits had to be transported by road through seven countries Dubai to Afghanistan to avoid the usual route via the Strait of Hormuz, Aylieff said, and is taking three weeks longer than usual. “Afghan children are starving today because of it,” Aylieff said, adding that many could die.

Another spokesperson at the WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian organization, told the Guardian that the organization estimated that the oil price hike meant it would not be able to reach around 1.5 million people around the world in the coming months. The UN agency is working to divert around 93,000 tonnes of food, such as fortified biscuits and nutritional supplements, destined for communities in urgent need, including refugees from the war in Sudan – the world’s biggest humanitarian emergency – a significant cost and delay. It is not just ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz that are being held up, they explained, but all shipping through the region has felt the impact of the resulting widespread congestion at sea.

For example, stocks of manufacturing hubs in India Typically sail from a port near Mumbai to Oman to Jeddah through the strait of Bab el-Mandeb and on to Port Sudan. Now due to risk and congestion, they sail around the Cape of Good Hope through the Mediterranean to the Suez Canal and then on to Jeddah, adding 9,000 km and a few weeks to the journey.

in Bangladeshthe world’s largest development NGO, Brac, said its staff spend five hours a week queuing for rationed fuel, reducing the amount of time they can spend working in refugee communities.

Even if a truce held, Savage warned of consequences for months to come. “We haven’t even seen the type of damage that has already been done.”

In Sudan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, where the planting season has begun, shortages of fertilizer and fuel will severely affect farmers’ ability to grow crops, driving food insecurity, said Mercy Corps’ Nick Jones-Bannister. up to 45% of the world’s seeds and fertilizers depend on access through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the UN. “It will have an impact on civil conflict and on migration,” Jones-Bannister said.