“We have distributed an enormous amount of essential medical supplies, but it’s not enough. I mean, this is such an overwhelming disaster, it’s not enough,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Palestine. Speaking in Geneva on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly, the senior WHO official echoed widespread…
Ms. Keita, who also heads the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO, sounded the alarm over the humanitarian disaster “unfolding before our very eyes”. More than seven million people in the country are displaced, particularly due to the operations of armed groups such as the M23 and the Allied Defense Forces (ADF) across the…
Echoing renewed deep concerns by the UN’s top humanitarian official Martin Griffiths that an assault on Rafah “could lead to a slaughter”, the World Health Organization (WHO) also firmly rejected allegations of years-long collusion with non-health partners either in or underneath Gaza’s hospitals. ‘There is no collusion’ “We definitely cannot be louder in saying that no, there…
UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA said that many areas in the enclave have been flooded, “worsening the struggle of displaced Palestinians”, while UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini was due to brief journalists in Geneva on the situation on Thursday, following his most recent visit to Gaza. Almost 1.9 million people in the enclave have been…
Briefing reporters from Gaza, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, described corridors overflowing with trauma patients at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, where doctors treat people on the floor and fuel, oxygen, food and water are scarce. In just 66 days of fighting, the Strip has been transformed from a “reasonably…
In a letter to the President of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, warned that UNRWA’s ability to implement its mandate in Gaza is “severely limited” and that the primary platform for humanitarian assistance to over 2.2 million people in Gaza is “on…
These are the grim findings of an assessment published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on Thursday, which calls for both immediate and long-term remediation measures. Hundreds of square kilometres were flooded in the disaster, and thousands of square kilometres of reservoir and wetlands were desiccated. UNEP’s preliminary assessment carried out at the request of…
Briefing the Security Council, Abdoulaye Bathily noted the thousands of lives lost by the dam bursts which destroyed whole neighbourhoods after Storm Daniel slammed the region on 10 September. The Special Representative told ambassadors that despite the sense of national unity and compassion shown by ordinary Libyans, the disaster had revealed “severe governance deficits” across…
According to various estimates, up to 75 per cent of extreme weather events are currently connected to climate change, fuelled by carbon emissions. The countries experiencing the greatest losses from disasters are those who contribute the least to the problem. UN figures reveal that from 1970 through 2019, some 91 percent of all of deaths…
Persons with disabilities face a “shocking lack of support” with no progress in the last decade, despite a huge increase in climate disasters worldwide, the new UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) report states, and that lack of progress could be a violation of international law. Persons with disabilities make up 16 per cent…
