WHO estimates that 23 million people with visual disabilities live in conflict or natural-disaster zones worldwide. When an earthquake destroys a city or war breaks out, they are often the last people rescuers find and frequently receive the least help.
On May 8, 2026, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement celebrates its World Day. The date is also the birthday of Henry Dunant, who founded the ICRC in 1863. In a world where the number of active armed conflicts is at its highest since 1945, according to the 2025 ACLED report, and where climate disasters are intensifying, one population remains systematically underprotected: people with visual disabilities. This article explores how modern humanitarian aid, mobile artificial intelligence, and online communities such as Be My Eyes Volunteer and Lumyeye are organizing to fill that gap.
The history of the Red Cross and recognition of disability
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was founded in Geneva in 1863 after Henry Dunant witnessed the battlefield at Solferino. The Geneva Conventions of 1864 and 1949 protect wounded people, prisoners, and civilians. Yet it was not until the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified by France in 2010, that an international legal framework explicitly protected people with disabilities in emergencies under Article 11. In 2019, the ICRC adopted a “Vision 2030 disability inclusion” policy committing each of its 192 national societies to include disability in all its work.
In France, the French Red Cross, founded in 1864, has 60,000 volunteers. It runs evacuation units, emergency shelters, and a dedicated program for supporting people with disabilities during departmental ORSEC emergency plans. In the field, however, responders trained to assist a blind person remain rare: fewer than 4% of first responders had completed a specific module, according to its internal 2024 report.
The specific challenges of war and earthquake zones
When an earthquake strikes a city or war forces civilians to flee, several realities disproportionately affect blind and low-vision people.
Ukraine: the evacuation challenge
Since February 2022, the Ukrainian Society of the Blind, UTOS, has recorded more than 2,800 internally displaced blind people, out of a population estimated before the conflict at 75,000 people who were blind or had severe low vision. Air-raid warnings sound through sirens or phone notifications, which remain accessible when the phone supports VoiceOver. But once inside a shelter, many people report difficulty navigating a crowded basement, identifying distributed rations, or recognizing the volunteers helping them.
Turkey and Syria: the February 2023 earthquake
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023 killed more than 50,000 people and displaced 1.5 million. According to Handicap International, approximately 15% of people with disabilities in the affected areas had visual impairments. Many lost their white canes, magnifiers, or adapted phones in collapsed buildings. Temporary shelters, designed in an emergency, offered neither audio signage nor dedicated human assistance.
Morocco: the Al Haouz earthquake, September 2023
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Morocco's Atlas Mountains struck a rural region where access to eye care was already limited. The Alaouite Organization for the Blind documented the situation: 200 villages destroyed, people scattered across tent sites, and several hundred low-vision people forced to walk at night to distribution points without any landmarks.
The MSF Vision program: restoring sight in crisis zones
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has operated ophthalmology missions in crisis zones since the 2000s. The MSF Vision program, formalized in 2018, deploys mobile cataract-surgery teams, mainly in East Africa, Yemen, and Haiti. According to MSF's 2024 activity report, its teams have performed more than 180,000 cataract operations since the program began. The average cost of an operation on a mission is approximately €60, compared with €1,200 at a private European clinic.
But cataracts are only part of the problem. For people with inoperable conditions such as AMD, advanced glaucoma, and retinitis pigmentosa, MSF increasingly works with technology partners, Microsoft foundations, Be My Eyes, and local associations to distribute refurbished phones equipped with visual-assistance apps.
How mobile AI is changing the situation
The arrival of multimodal AI combining text, images, and voice on smartphones in 2023 and 2024 transformed visual accessibility. Three applications now play a major role in humanitarian contexts.
Be My Eyes Volunteer (Denmark)
The app connects a blind person by video call with a sighted volunteer who speaks the same language, anywhere in the world. In 2026 it has more than eight million volunteers in 185 countries. It is especially useful in a crisis: a displaced Syrian person can receive help in Arabic from a volunteer in Lyon to read a directional sign in a Turkish camp. But the service depends on a stable network connection, which is often unreliable in conflict zones.
Be My AI (Be My Eyes and OpenAI)
Since 2023, the app has included AI capable of describing images in a few seconds without a human volunteer. It is useful when the network is weak and someone simply needs to “read instructions” or “identify a medication.”
Lumyeye (France)
Lumyeye, developed in Paris, offers a complementary approach: a voice AI assistant that takes a photo and describes its contents in French in under three seconds. The app is designed to work with minimal bandwidth and native VoiceOver support. Although it is not specifically deployed on humanitarian missions, its operating model of photo, AI, and voice is exactly what French humanitarian organizations need to equip emergency phones quickly. See our Lumyeye versus Be My Eyes comparison and our story.
Testimonial: Dr. Camille L., MSF physician in the West Bank
“I operated on a 67-year-old woman in Nablus in October 2024. She had an extremely advanced bilateral cataract and had seen nothing for two years. Her son, a nurse, had downloaded Be My AI and Lumyeye to his phone so she could identify her medications while waiting for surgery. When I saw her again six weeks later, she was crying. She told us, ‘Before the operation, these apps saved my life. Afterward, you gave me back my grandchildren.’ That continuity—AI beforehand, surgery when possible, then AI again afterward for what remains impaired—is what defines tomorrow's medicine.”
How to help from France
Individuals and businesses that want to support the inclusion of low-vision people in humanitarian settings have several options.
Donate to the French Red Cross
Donations to the French Red Cross qualify for a 66% tax deduction, up to 20% of taxable income. Part of the funding pays for first-responder training modules on disability assistance.
Donate to Médecins Sans Frontières
MSF directs donations to its operational programs. The Vision program is regularly supported through year-end campaigns built around the message “€1 equals one cataract operation.”
Donate to Handicap International
HI works specifically on disability inclusion in emergencies. Donations qualify for a 75% tax deduction under French provisions for combating exclusion.
Become a Be My Eyes volunteer
It is free, registration takes five minutes, and volunteers can help in French, English, Spanish, or another language. A request takes two minutes on average.
Advocate with your member of the European Parliament
In 2026, the European Parliament is debating a new regulation on humanitarian accessibility. It is a major legislative lever for making disability training mandatory in EU-funded aid programs.
The future: humanitarian aid that is inclusive by default
By 2030, French humanitarian organizations including the French Red Cross, MSF, Solidarités International, and Action Against Hunger share a goal: 100% of emergency plans should include provisions for visual disability, with pocket-sized phones equipped with AI apps, trained volunteers, and physically accessible distribution points. This is not a luxury; it is the practical application of the CRPD and a fundamental right.
As a French publisher of a voice AI app, Lumyeye supports this movement. Our work primarily serves end users in France, but our photo, AI, and voice architecture is inherently transferable. To understand how Lumyeye was conceived, read our story and Alban Clochet's biography.
Sources and references
- ICRC — “Vision 2030 disability inclusion” policy, Geneva, 2019
- WHO — World report on vision, 2024 update
- MSF — 2024 activity report, MSF Vision program
- ACLED — Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, 2025 annual report
- Handicap International — Disability inclusion in the Turkey-Syria earthquake response, 2023
- UTOS — Ukrainian Society of the Blind, November 2024 statement
- United Nations — Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), 2006
Alban Clochet — Founder of Lumyeye, based in Paris. Committed to universal visual accessibility, he regularly reports on the humanitarian issues surrounding visual disability. Read his biography.