In a bleak assessment of the dire situation in Sudan where conflict is in its second year, the heads of 19 global humanitarian organizations issued an alert that further obstacles to providing aid “rapidly and at scale” will mean that “more people will die”. UN aid coordination office OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in…
“They used to shelter inside the school yard here, inside the classrooms, using all the external space. Now there’s nothing left. Everybody evacuated very quickly,” said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Communications Officer. Writing in a social media post on X that abandoned children’s shoes were “everywhere” at the school, the UNRWA officer also pointed to rubble…
Andrea de Domenico was speaking via videoconference to journalists in New York, briefing them on developments in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. He said although humanitarians welcome recent Israeli commitments to improve aid facilitation in Gaza, “we are dealing with this dance where we do one step forward, two steps backwards; or two steps…
“Famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in the northern governorates,” the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said, upon publication of a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Gaza. Meanwhile, in response to the unfolding situation at Al-Shifa, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,…
Ulrika Richardson, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, was speaking from the capital, Port-au-Prince, a day after the Government and partners launched the plan to provide food, shelter, health, education and protection services for 3.6 million people this year. “This is a call for increased solidarity, and Haiti needs it,” she said, noting that the country…
“We as the UN and Member States of the UN can bear witness,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told journalists in Geneva. “We can warn what might unfold with a ground invasion and we can make clear what the law says… under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes.”…
“There is simply not enough food,” UNRWA tweeted on social platform X, formerly Twitter, with photographs from another city slightly further north, Deir-al-Balah, showing people queuing “in the rain and cold” for relief supplies. In its latest situation update, UN aid coordination office OCHA reported heavy fighting in Khan Younis close to two hospitals: Nasser –…
Echoing those concerns, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a tweet on X that in addition to the threat of being killed, Gazans faced a growing risk of disease, just as health services were collapsing. Only 16 out of 36 hospitals “are even partly functional”, Mr. Guterres said. In another post on social media, UN emergency…
Today, some 14.6 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance – or 40 per cent of the population – and 6.3 million have fled beyond its borders as refugees. “We must stay the course” with the people of Ukraine, Mr. Griffiths told journalists in Geneva, adding that “no place” had been untouched by the…
The latest warnings from UN relief agency for Palestinians UNRWA and the UN World Food Programme, WFP, highlighted the threat of starvation and disease in heavily built-up areas, where tens of thousands of people have fled intense bombing campaigns in the enclave’s north and centre. Skipping meals “Everyone in Gaza is hungry! Skipping meals is…
