This year people all around the world have faced dire conditions and emergency needs stemming from the challenges of the pandemic, climate change and global conflict.

Around the globe, COVID-19 has converged with severe drought and conflict, creating massive humanitarian needs for a growing number of displaced families. According to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, some 84 million people were forcibly displaced this year.

The world’s most vulnerable people are most affected by these struggles. After living through perilous journeys, migrants often arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They are desperate — hungry, exhausted and frightened. Be it unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border, displaced families from Afghanistan at U.S. military bases or migrants in distress in the Mediterranean Sea, the American Red Cross has been there to provide medical assistance, emotional support and critical relief items.

This year, at the request of federal government partners, Red Cross workers distributed more than 2.1 million essential items — blankets, diapers, medicine and toys — for evacuees from Afghanistan, as well as unaccompanied children seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Read more at Red Cross.org