Disinformation the new enemy in disaster zones, says Red Cross

GENEVA – The rise of disinformation is undermining humanitarian aid and putting lives at risk, even as disasters are affecting ever more people, the Red Cross warned on March 5.

“Between 2020 and 2024, disasters affected nearly 700 million people, caused more than 105 million displacements and claimed over 270,000 lives,” the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies said.

The number of people needing humanitarian assistance more than doubled in the same timeframe, the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report 2026.

But the world’s largest humanitarian network said “harmful information and dehumanising narratives” were increasingly undermining trust, putting the lives of aid workers at risk.

“In polarised and politically charged contexts, humanitarian principles such as neutrality and impartiality are increasingly misunderstood, misrepresented or deliberately attacked online,” it said.

The IFRC has more than 17 million volunteers across more than 191 countries.

“In every crisis I have witnessed, information is as essential as food, water and shelter,” said the Geneva-based federation’s secretary-general Jagan Chapagain.

“But when information is false, misleading or deliberately manipulated, it can deepen fear, obstruct humanitarian access and cost lives.”

He said harmful information was not a new phenomenon, but it is now moving “with unprecedented speed and reach”.

Mr Chapagain said digital platforms were proving “fertile ground for lies”.

The IFRC report said the challenge nowadays was no longer about the availability of information but its reliability, noting that the production and spread of disinformation was easily amplified by artificial intelligence.

‘Life and death’

The report cited numerous recent examples of harmful information hampering crisis response.

During the

2024 floods in Valencia

, false narratives online accused the Spanish Red Cross of diverting aid to migrants, which in turn fuelled “xenophobic attacks on volunteers”, the IFRC said.

In South Sudan, rumours that humanitarian agencies were distributing poisoned food “caused people to avoid life-saving aid” and led to threats against Red Cross staff.

In Lebanon, false claims that volunteers were spreading Covid-19, favouring certain groups with aid and providing unsafe cholera vaccines eroded trust and endangered vulnerable communities, the IFRC said.

And in Bangladesh, during political unrest, volunteers faced “widespread accusations of inaction and political alignment”, leading to harassment and reputational damage, it added.

Similar events were registered by the IFRC in Sudan, Myanmar, Peru, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Kenya and Bulgaria.

The report underlined that around 94 per cent of disasters were handled by national authorities and local communities, without international interventions.

“However, while volunteers, local leaders and community media are often the most trusted messengers, they operate in increasingly hostile and polarised information environments,” the IFRC said.

The federation called on governments, tech firms, humanitarian agencies and local actors to recognise that reliable information “is a matter of life and death”.

“Without trust, people are less likely to prepare, seek help or follow life-saving guidance; with it, communities act together, absorb shocks and recover more effectively,” said Mr Chapagain.

The organisation urged technology platforms to prioritise authoritative information from trusted sources in crisis contexts, and transparently moderate harmful content.

And it said humanitarian agencies needed to make preparing to deal with disinformation “a core function” of their operations, with trained teams and analytics. AFP