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International-UN-NGOs

U.N. Shrinks Food Aid to Syria Refugees in Turkey as Cash Low

2015-03-07

[AnNahar] The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... food agency said Friday it had been forced to withdraw aid from nine Syrian refugee camps in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... due to a lack of funds, calling on donors to step up. "Unfortunately, in February, we were forced to ask the Turkish government to take over assistance in nine camps where we could not continue providing aid because we lack funds," said World Food Programme spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs. Speaking to news hounds in Geneva, Byrs said WFP was facing a $71-million (65-million-euro) shortfall for its aid programme in Turkey this year. "Getting more funding is really essential," she said. The U.N. agency needs $9 million each month to provide hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country with food aid, she said. It had, in cooperation with the Turkish government, been providing some 220,000 refugees with electronic vouchers in the form of debit cards credited with money, allowing them to purchase the food and supplies they need in stores. But it had been forced to cut the number of recipients to just 154,000 last month, Byrs said. The Turkish government, which had already been contributing 40 percent of the monthly value credited to the cards, has for now stepped in to close the funding gap. But the country, which is hosting some 1.7 million Syrian refugees and which has already spent around $4.5 billion to assist them since the Syrian conflict began four years ago, will not be able to foot the bill on its own forever, Byrs warned. The lacking funds also threaten WFP's plans to expand the vastly popular "debit card" voucher system to refugees living outside the camps in Turkey. "Predictability of the financing is essential if we want to expand the program," she told Agence La Belle France Presse. It would be a tragedy if WFP cannot expand the programme or is forced to permanently scale it back, Byrs said, stressing that the electronic vouchers allow refugees to choose for themselves what they eat and is far more efficient and less expensive that simply handing out meals. And since the refugees spend the cash in Turkish stores, WFP estimates the programme has pumped nearly $700 million into the Turkish economy since 2011. At the same time, Turkey became WFP's top food supplier worldwide last year, when the U.N. agency procured food worth $380 million from 28 different Turkish suppliers. This is not the first time WFP has been forced to cut aid due to lacking funds. Late last year, the U.N. agency briefly suspended food aid to more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Leb, Iraq and Egypt, blaming a financing emergency. It resumed that aid after donors chipped in around $90 million following an urgent appeal for funds.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel warns of wider Gaza assault as toll soars to 285

2014-07-19

Israel warned on Friday it could broaden a Gaza ground assault aimed at smashing Hamas’s network of cross-border tunnels, as intensifying tank fire hiked the Palestinian death toll to 285. In the face of Israel’s land, sea and air offensive, Hamas remained defiant and warned the Jewish state it would “drown in the swamp of Gaza” As Gaza residents spoke of a night of terror, with gunbattles in the south and all-night shelling in the north, Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to ready for “the possibility of a significant broadening of the ground activity.” Immediately afterwards, he convened his security cabinet to discuss plans for a possible expansion of the campaign, which began on July 8 with the aim of stamping out cross-border rocket fire. The ground operation, which began in the Gaza periphery at around 2000 GMT on Thursday, sent thousands of people fleeing west to escape the fighting, with a UN agency saying the numbers of displaced had almost doubled overnight. “The number of people coming to UNRWA seeking sanctuary from the fighting in Gaza has nearly doubled today. It has risen from 22,000 to over 40,000,” said Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, saying they were staying in 34 of the agency’s schools. By mid-morning on Friday, the road between Gaza City and Khan Yunis was deserted with only a single minibus, packed with passengers, careering south, its windows covered with makeshift white flags, an AFP correspondent said. During Friday prayers, imams at Gaza’s 1,400 mosques relayed a single message to the faithful: “Be patient and strong, victory will come.” But it was little comfort for those on the ground with hospitals overwhelmed by a flood of patients. “The situation is very, very difficult,” said doctor Kamel Zaqzuq at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis. “At night, it’s one constant emergency.” With food supplies running desperately low, the World Food Programme said it had already distributed emergency food rations and food vouchers to more than 20,000 displaced people since the conflict erupted on July 8. But with the ground operation, it was gearing up for a huge increase in the coming days, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva. “In the next few days, WFP hopes to reach 85,000 people with food distributions,” she said. The more you feed them the longer they hold out before a ceasefire... Gaza was also struggling with a 70 per cent power outage after electricity lines from Israel were damaged by a Hamas rocket, officials said. By mid-evening, after a relative lull during the daylight hours, Israeli tank fire began intensifying and fatality reports poured in. The deaths, and those of others in the evening throughout Gaza, brought the number killed since midnight to 44, and raised the overall toll in 11 days of fighting in Gaza to 285 people killed. An Israeli civilian and a soldier have also been killed. Israel has said the aim of the ground operation is to destroy Hamas’s network of tunnels which are used for cross-border attacks on southern Israel. “It is not possible to deal with tunnels only from the air, so our soldiers are also doing that on the ground,” Netanyahu said, although he admitted there was “no guarantee of 100 percent success.”

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Arabia

U.N.: Half of Yemenis Threatened by Food Crisis

2014-05-31

[AnNahar] Nearly half of Yemen's population is going hungry, the U.N.'s food agency warned Friday, saying it was scaling up its aid to the impoverished country. More than 10 million of Yemen's some 25 million inhabitants are either severely food insecure -- meaning they require food assistance because they cannot find enough food for themselves -- or teetering on the edge, the World Food Program said. The country has one of the world's highest levels of malnutrition among children, with nearly half of all kids under the age of five -- a full two million of them -- stunted, WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told news hounds. A million of those kids are acutely malnourished, she said. The problem is difficult to tackle. No, actually it's simple... Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, ...for a good reason, though our intrepid reporter won't dare say... has been going through a difficult political transition since veteran president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... was ousted in February 2012 after a year of deadly protests against his 33-year rule. The country is struggling with endemic poverty, political instability, large-scale displacement of Yemenis and refugee influxes from other countries, civil strife and rife insecurity. The causes, deciphered, are culture, war, war, culture, war and war... At the same time, Yemen is particularly vulnerable to international hikes in food prices, since it imports up to 90 percent of its main staple foods like wheat and sugar, Byrs pointed out. Because of war, war, culture and war, farmers aren't secure and don't grow food in the country. That does tend to make the food supply 'insecure'... In a bid to try to get the situation under control, WFP is scaling up its food assistance program to Yemen, where it already provided aid to some 839,000 people last month, she said. Starting in July, the U.N. agency plans to launch a special two-year "Recovery Operation," aimed at addressing long-term hunger and helping ensure food stability for some six million people. By giving food away. That's not what is meant by "food stability", I think... Under the program, the U.N. agency will among other things provide malnutrition prevention and treatment, give 200,000 girls in school take-home rations of food, and will help create rural jobs, improve agriculture and water supplies, Byrs said. You won't improve agriculture until you put the hard boyz down. The aid increase will be costly, she said, with the agency estimating the two-year program will cost around $491 million (360 million euros). So far however, WFP remains $117.5 million short to cover its operations just until the end of this year, Byrs said. Because more and more of the wealthier nations of the world are getting tired of countries like Yemen not being able to get its act together.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.N. Warns of Drought Crisis in Syria

2014-04-10

Part of what started the Arab Spring rebellions across the region... [AnNahar] The U.N.'s food aid agency warned on Tuesday that Syria was facing a drought that could put millions of people's lives at risk, compounding the impact of years of war. "WFP is concerned about the impact of a looming drought hitting the northwest of the country -- mainly Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama -- with rainfall less than half of the long-term average and potentially major impacts on the next cereal harvest," said World Food Program spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs. "This could put the lives of millions at risk if the drought continues," she told news hounds. Byrs said there were huge concerns about the drought's impact on Syrian agriculture, given that irrigation systems and farm machines have already been hit by the war. In addition to fears for the cereal sector, there are also worries over the impact of water shortages on livestock farming. "All this comes together to give a picture of a situation that isn't going to get better," Byrs said. The WFP is currently able to get aid to 4.5 million people in Syria out of the 6.5 million it estimates need help. Byrs said it was not clear how many more people would end up counting on food aid supplies because of the drought. The affected regions of Syria normally account for more than half the country's annual wheat harvest. According to U.N. experts, this year's harvest could hit a historic low of between 1.7 million and two million tonnes. Syria was last hit by a major drought in 2008, three years before the country slid into a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and driven nine million from their homes, including the 2.6 million refugees who have fled abroad. The U.N.'s refugee agency said Tuesday that the numbers crossing the border could rise if there is no rainfall.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Evacuation operation in Homs begins

2014-02-08

[BBC.CO.UK] Emergency officials have evacuated 83 civilians from the city of Homs in Syria, according to the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Buses were able to enter the rebel-held Old City after both sides agreed to a three-day pause in the fighting. Up to 3,000 civilians are thought to be trapped in Homs. The UN-negotiated ceasefire between Syrian forces and rebels should also allow food and medical aid to reach Homs on Saturday. Farhan Haq, front man for UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... , said the people able to leave were children, women and the elderly. 'Malnourished' They were "delivered to places of their choice, escorted by United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Islamic Thingy staff", he said. A spokeswoman for the World Food Programme told Rooters that many of those evacuated appeared malnourished. "They were living on leaves and grass and olives and whatever they could find," said Elisabeth Byrs. The first busload of 12 elderly men and women were taken to the premises of the governor of Homs.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UN airlifts aid to northeastern Syria

2014-02-05

The UN World Food Programme on Tuesday said it was airlifting supplies to northeastern Syria, where raging violence has made it nearly impossible to truck aid in. “WFP started airlifting on Tuesday enough food to feed close to 30,000 displaced people for a month from Iraq to Qamishli in northeast Syria,” spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said. The agency plans to fly in more than 400 tonnes of food and other items, mainly clothes, detergent and soap, supplied by UN children’s agency Unicef and the International Organization for Migration. The Arab countries are separately supporting the Widows Ammunition Fund, the largest charity by far in Syria. They help both sides... In December, the WFP airlifted supplies for 62,000 in the northeast who had been deprived of food aid for more than five months. The WFP’s operation is the only airlift currently under way in Syria. Aid agencies have repeatedly sounded the alarm about their inability to supply regular aid by road — logistically simpler, but more dangerous — to the millions of Syrians who have been driven from their homes over nearly three years of civil war.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UN aid convoy awaiting green light to deliver food to Homs: WFP

2014-01-29

[Egypt Independent] The United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... food agency is ready to deliver a month of rations to the Old City of Homs in Syria for 2,500 people once it gets a green light from all sides, a World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman said on Tuesday. The UN hub in Homs is preparing an inter-agency aid convoy carrying food and other supplies for the besieged population in the rebel-held city, she said in response to a query. "Once all parties on the ground allow the inter-agency convoy to proceed, WFP will deliver to the Old City 500 family rations and 500 bags of wheat flour, enough for 2,500 people for one month," WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told Rooters. International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Monday the Syrian government and opposition parties were still discussing how women and kiddies could leave the Old City, where the United States has said people are starving, but there had been no decision on allowing access for a convoy due to snipers and other problems.

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Africa Horn

UN: South Sudan looters steal food supply for 220,000 for a month

2014-01-25

[Egypt Independent] Looters in South Sudan have stolen more than 3,700 tonnes of food, enough to feed 220,000 people for a month, the World Food Programme said on Friday. The U.N. agency's warehouses in Malakal had been almost emptied, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told a UN briefing in Geneva. The agency was working to recover lost stocks wherever possible and trying to protect remaining stocks, she said. The loss will hamper efforts to feed the 73,000 civilians who have taken refuge in UN bases as well as more than 200,000 refugees who have been relying on UN support in Upper Nile and Unity states since before the latest crisis began. A total of 494,000 people have been uprooted across South Sudan, the UN says. South Sudan's government and rebels signed a ceasefire on Thursday to end more than five weeks of violence that divided Africa's newest nation and brought it to the brink of civil war. "In this kind of situation it's very difficult to protect food stocks," Byrs said, adding that she had no details on how the looting had happened. The ceasefire is expected to be implemented within 24 hours of the signing, but there were doubts from diplomats that the depth of the ethnic, political and personal grievances would be easy to overcome. WFP is seeking $57.8 million for emergency food aid for South Sudan, and expects to need to ask for more in future. WFP has reported no looting of its food stocks so far in another African crisis, in Central African Republic.

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Africa Subsaharan

U.N.: Food Aid Pillaged in Central Africa

2013-01-09

Of course. [An Nahar] Hundreds of tonnes of food aid have been stolen from warehouses across the restive Central African Republic, the U.N.'s World Food Program lamented Tuesday. "Our warehouses have been pillaged," WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told AFP. The U.N. agency suspended its operations in the Central African Republic (CAR) late last month due to the security situation in the country amid a month-long rebel offensive. Byrs said some 210 tonnes of food had been taken from a warehouse in the rebel-held north-central town of Kaga-Bandoro, where the WFP office and guest-house had also been attacked. In Bambari, another rebel-held town in central CAR, a WFP warehouse had been looted and some 209 tonnes of food, including riche, oil, sugar and salt had been lost, while another seven tonnes of food aid had been taken from Bria in the east.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UN says it can't feed one million hungry Syrians

2013-01-09

[Dawn] The World Food Program said Tuesday it is unable to help an estimated one million Syrians who are going hungry, blaming a lack of security in the war-stricken country. Maybe they should bill the government of Syria? This month, the agency aims to help 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Syrians whom the Syrian Arab Red Islamic Thingy says need food aid, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said. The poor security and the agency's inability to use the Syrian port of Tartous for shipments means that a large number of people in the some of the country's hardest hit areas will not get help, she said. "Our main partner, the Red Islamic Thingy, is overstretched and has no more capacity to expand further," Byrs said. She also said that the agency has temporarily pulled its staff out of its offices in the Syrian cities of Homs, Aleppo, Tartous and Qamisly due to the rising dangers in those areas. But in December, WFP was able to enter for the first time in many months some hard-to-reach areas near the Turkish border, she said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.N. Says Syria Agrees to Joint Humanitarian Assessment Mission

2012-03-10

[An Nahar] U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said on Friday that Syria had agreed to allow a preliminary assessment of the relief needs in areas hard hit by the year-old conflict. Amos, who has toured the battered city of Homs and refugee camps in Turkey this week, also said Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... must allow aid groups "unhindered access to evacuate the maimed and deliver desperately needed supplies". The regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... has cracked down on protesters and rebel fighters over the past year in a brutal military campaign that, according to the opposition, has claimed nearly 8,500 lives. Amos, the U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told news hounds in Ankara that "we have agreed on a joint preliminary humanitarian assessment mission to areas where people urgently need assistance". She said a proposal had been submitted to the Syrian government for delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid, and that she had asked for an urgent consideration of the matter. Currently, no U.N. aid agencies are allowed into Syria, and information is scarce on the details of the civilians' needs. In Geneva, a U.N. spokeswoman said that 1.5 million people might be in need of food aid in Syria, according to latest available data, but that the real number would need to be evaluated from inside the country. "We have an estimated figure of 1.5 million people potentially in need of food assistance," the spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Elisabeth Byrs, told a press briefing. On Wednesday, Amos visited the battered Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which was left "totally destroyed" after the former rebel stronghold was bombarded for a month and then stormed by Syrian troops on March 1. "There were hardly any people left there," Amos said. Amos saluted three of Syria's neighboring countries for allowing in refugees who continue to escape amid the escalating violence. "I would like to thank all three countries for continuing to keep their borders open for Syrians who are crossing because they are fleeing conflict," said Amos, referring to Turkey, Jordan and Leb. Following the Homs crackdown, more Syrians have started crossing into Turkey, fearing a similar crackdown in their towns closer to the border. Turkey's border province of Hatay now houses more than 12,000 Syrians, according to a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Africa Horn

Over 3,000 killed in South Sudan massacre

2012-01-07

Over 3,000 people were killed in South Sudan in brutal massacres last week in an kaboom of ethnic violence that forced tens of thousands to flee, the top local official said Friday. "There have been mass killings, a massacre," said Joshua Konyi, commissioner for Pibor county in Jonglei state. "We have been out counting the bodies, and we calculate so far that 2,182 women and kiddies were killed and 959 men died." United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... and South Sudanese army officials have yet to confirm the corpse counts and the claims from the remote region could not be independently verified. If confirmed, the killings of 3,141 people would be the worst outbreak of ethnic violence ever seen in the decampedgling nation, which split from Sudan in July. A column of some 6,000 rampaging armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe last week marched on the remote town of Pibor, home to the rival Murle people, whom they blame for abductions and cattle raiding and have vowed to exterminate. The Lou Nuer gunnies attacked Pibor at the weekend, torching huts and looting a hospital, and only withdrew after government troops opened fire. Over a thousand children are missing, feared kidnapped, while tens of thousands of cows were stolen, added Konyi, who is himself an ethnic Murle. The UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, Lise Grande, said she feared "tens, perhaps hundreds" could have died. "Yes, there have been casualties, but we don't have the details, and can't at present confirm what the commissioner reports," said Jonglei state information minister Isaac Ajiba. "We are awaiting reports from our (military) forces on the ground," said South Sudan army front man Philip Aguer. "For the assessment to be credible they must have gone into the villages to count all the bodies." South Sudan has declared Jonglei state a national "disaster area", while the UN has said it will launch a "massive emergency operation" to help those uprooted by the violence. "The needs are great... It is currently estimated that 50,000 people are affected," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told news hounds in Geneva. The ethnic groups must "return all the kidnapped women and kiddies of both sides and reunite them with their communities," the government added. Lou Nuer fighters are now returning homewards, after the army and UN peacekeepers beefed up reinforcements in Pibor, while the World Food Programme (WFP) has flown in emergency rations to support the thousands displaced. A statement from a group calling itself the "Nuer White Army" said their attacks against the Murle had been "successful" and warned of more assaults if the Murle retaliate. "If they did that, we will launch surprise attacks which will lead to more bloodshed and displacements," it added, warning the government "any attempt to disarm the Nuer White Army will lead to catastrophe." Doctors Without Borders (MSF -- Medecins Sans Frontieres), the main healthcare provider for the estimated 160,000 people in Pibor county, has temporarily suspended its operations after the festivities forced them to evacuate staff. "Parts of the town have been burnt, our facilities were completely looted, but people are coming back and are not afraid any more, it is stable now," said Parthesarathy Rajendran, MSF head of mission, after visiting Pibor. "There are enormous needs, some people need every single item. Our first priority will be medical care, but we are planning to provide non-food items as well so people can start rebuilding," he added in a statement Friday. Newly independent South Sudan was left in ruins by decades of war with northern Sudanese forces, who fuelled conflict by backing proxy militia forces across the south, often exacerbating historical enmities between rival groups. Ethnic violence, cattle raids and reprisal attacks in the vast eastern state left over 1,100 people dead and forced some 63,000 from their homes last year, according to UN reports based on local authorities and assessment teams.

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