Posted in Actors, Africa, Blogroll, Country, Other, Refugee Camps, Region, Somalia, United Nations, tagged civilians, food crisis, food insecurity, IDPs, Internally Displaced Persons, Somalia, UN, WFP, World Food Programme on August 30, 2009 |
By IRIN
NAIROBI, 27 August 2009 (IRIN) – Two months after food deliveries to Somalia’s south-central town of Jowhar were halted, several thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs) are facing a food crisis, sources said.
“The little food we were given in June is gone; we have had nothing in the last two months,” Asiyo Jilibey, a community leader, told IRIN on 27 August. “I don’t know what will happen next but if help does not arrive soon we are in trouble.” (more…)
Posted in Actors, Africa, Blogroll, Country, Other, Refugee Camps, Region, Somalia, United Nations, tagged civilians, Displacement, IDPs, Internaly Displaced Persons, Mogadishu, OCHA, refugees, Somalia, UN, UN World Food Program, UNICEF, United Nations, WFP on August 8, 2009 |
By XINHUA
UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — Lack of access has prevented the United Nations from delivering food to 500,000 of its planned 3.3 million beneficiaries in Somalia over the past month, principally in Mogadishu and the south of the battle-scarred country, the UN humanitarian agency reported here on Friday.
At the same time, the UN World Food Program (WFP) will face critical shortfalls as of October and urgently requires 209,000 metric tons of food worth 208 million U.S. dollars to cover the current aid pipeline until the end of March 2010, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. (more…)
Posted in Actors, Africa, Blogroll, Civilian Casualties, Country, Displacement, Government, Insurgents, NGOs, Region, Somalia, Type of Harm, United Nations, tagged Afgooye corridor, al Shabaab, IDPs, Internally Displaced Persons, Mogadishu, Somalia, UNDP, UNDSS, UNHCR, UNPOS, WFP, WHO, World Food Programme on July 21, 2009 |
Reuters
By STEPHANIE NEBEHAY
* Fighting makes aid delivery increasingly difficult
* Over 43,000 cases of acute diarrhoea, including cholera
* WFP feeding 3.5 million in Horn of Africa country
GENEVA, July 21 (Reuters) – Intense fighting is making it increasingly difficult to deliver aid to Somalia, where it is crucial to combat cholera outbreaks and maintain food supplies, U.N. agencies said on Tuesday.
An estimated 223,000 people have fled Mogadishu since May 7, when fighting erupted between government troops and al Shabaab militants who control much of southern Somalia and parts of the capital, the U.N. refugee agency said. (more…)
Posted in Civilian Casualties, Crossfire Deaths, Crossfire Injuries, Foreign Aid, Government, Gunfire, Health Care, Military, NGOs, Refugee Camps, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Terrorists, United Nations, tagged aid, Civilian Casualties, Displacement, food aid, Government, healthcare, innocent civilians, innocent victims, International Red Cross, IRC, LTTE, Military, NGOs, no-fire zones, OCHA, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers, Terrorists, UN, UNHCR, United Nations, war victims, WFP, World Food Programme on April 15, 2009 |
By the United Nations Department of Public Information
While warmly welcoming the announcement by the Government of Sri Lanka of a pause in military operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan (LTTE) to allow civilians to leave the “no-fire zone”, the top United Nations humanitarian official today said that the two-day suspension was not enough.
Updating correspondents at Headquarters on the humanitarian situation in the small pocket of land in Sri Lanka which was the scene of ongoing fighting and where an estimated 100,000 civilians were trapped, John Holmes, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said the pause had been a valuable first step that hopefully would allow more trapped civilians to leave the conflict area and make it possible to get aid and relief workers into the area. The Secretary-General had called for a humanitarian pause for longer than two days and agreed to by both sides, he added.
Posted in Bomb, Civilian Casualties, Crossfire Deaths, Crossfire Injuries, Displacement, Foreign Aid, Government, Health Care, Military, NGOs, Peacekeepers, Property Damage, Refugee Camps, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Suicide Bomb, Terrorists, United Nations, tagged aid workers, disease, Displacement, Foreign Aid, Government, human shields, ICRC, innocent civilians, innocent victims, International Committee of the Red Cross, Mortar Shells, NGOs, no-fire zone, Property Damage, Red Cross, Shells, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Suicide Bomb, Tamil Tigers, UN, UNHCR, United Nations, war victims, WFP, World Food Programme on April 8, 2009 |
By Nita Bhalla, Reuters News
A woman walks near barbed wire at an internally displaced camp set up in Vavuniya for Tamils who have escaped the war zone.
Sri Lanka’s government says its 25-year war is nearing its conclusion as troops close in on Tamil Tiger rebels cornered in a tiny patch of land on the northeast coast. Aid agencies are warning of possibly dire humanitarian consequences for tens of thousands of civilians trapped with the Tigers in the shrinking war zone. And even after the conflict is over, the fate of civilians remains a serious concern. Here are some questions and answers about the fate of civilians caught up in Asia’s longest-running war:
HOW MANY CIVILIANS ARE AFFECTED? According to the United Nations and Red Cross, about 150,000 civilians are trapped inside the rapidly shrinking “no-fire zone”, a strip of land just 7 km long and 2 km wide (4 miles by 1.2 miles) along the northeastern coast. The government says that there are less than 100,000 there. The United Nations and rights groups say the Tigers have held people as human shields or conscripts. Some civilians who have managed to flee the no-fire zone report being fired on by the rebels or seeing friends and relatives forcibly recruited to fight. The U.N. and rights groups also say the government has shelled the densely packed no-fire zone, which the government denies as Tiger propaganda. Aid workers estimate about 5,000 civilians have managed to escape in the past two weeks, joining around 65,000 people who are being held in government-controlled camps.
