{"id":27742,"date":"2026-07-02T16:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/?p=27742"},"modified":"2026-07-03T10:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:54:48","slug":"information-a-humanitarian-defence-against-hybrid-warfare-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/information-a-humanitarian-defence-against-hybrid-warfare-2","title":{"rendered":"Information: a humanitarian defence against hybrid warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2026 saw record numbers of people displaced due to catastrophe or conflict. Against this backdrop, aid work\u2014more vital than ever\u2014is increasingly hampered by disinformation campaigns that affect victims first and foremost. Ensuring that these populations are better informed is surely instrumental in better assisting them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2026, due to catastrophe, and even more so to armed conflict, more than 82 million people (around 1% of the world\u2019s population) remain displaced with no immediate hope of returning home. These are record-breaking statistics. The numbers of catastrophes, victims of conflict and displaced persons all speak to a rise of around 50% in the level of insecurity caused by extreme events since 2020.<\/strong> In terms of the resurgence of imperialism and the increasingly-felt effects of climate change, the numbers confirm the impression received from the daily news. The world is less stable today than at the beginning of the decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this backdrop, the need for humanitarian aid work has never been so great. However, aid workers around the world are coming under attack. Of the 385 aid workers killed in 2024, 231 died in Gaza.<\/strong> Such shocking war crimes have become commonplace. In addition to losing their lives, aid workers risk injury, kidnap and threats. The increase in often sophisticated disinformation campaigns against them weakens the trust of populations affected by disaster. In the 2026 edition of its World Disasters Report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies deemed harmful information to be a widespread threat in all the areas in which it operates. It emphasised that trust must be built over time by delivering reliable responses to the vulnerable populations which such disinformation seeks to further disorient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when digital communications are widespread, disinformation seems to have become a weapon for destabilisation: 65% of the global population fears that a foreign disinformation campaign will attempt to influence the outcome of elections in their country<\/strong>. The fact that the most popular information-sharing platforms\u2014social networks and messaging apps\u2014foster affinity groups of users who tend to be less critical of what they see on their screens further increases the effectiveness of such campaigns. Debunking rumours spread with the aim of undermining societal cohesion is a complex task that local journalism based on strong values can help to accomplish. Faced with hybrid warfare practices that threaten the physical welfare of populations while sowing chaos in people’s minds, trustworthy, local information remains one of the most important defences we can build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece is taken from the 17th issue of Mediation, \u2018Information: a humanitarian defence against hybrid warfare\u2019, which you\u2019ll find attached at the top of this article<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2026 saw record numbers of people displaced due to catastrophe or conflict. Against this backdrop, aid work\u2014more vital than ever\u2014is increasingly hampered by disinformation campaigns that affect victims first and foremost. Ensuring that these populations are better informed is surely instrumental in better assisting them. In 2026, due to catastrophe, and even more so to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-our-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-10 22:44:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27742"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27880,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27742\/revisions\/27880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}