The population of El Fasher, which includes thousands of displaced people, is in ‘dire need of food, medicine and water’
Water, food and fuel supplies for people in the largest city in the Darfur region of Sudan are being choked off as fighting intensifies, according to reports.
El Fasher has been encircled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group over recent weeks, besieging the population as well as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied militias.
Continue reading...The African country accounted for two-thirds of the additional 13.5m people needing urgent help as displacement drove food insecurity globally
Sudan had the world’s largest number of people facing extreme food shortages in 2023 as conflict and displacement drove food insecurity globally, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The war between rival generals meant Sudan accounted for two-thirds of the additional 13.5 million people needing urgent help last year, while conflict also plunged Gaza into the world’s most severe food crisis with its entire population facing high levels of food insecurity.
Continue reading...António Guterres says Palestinian people ‘remain stuck in a non-stop nightmare’ as Israel stands accused of blocking aid
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has again called for a humanitarian ceasefireduring a visit to Egypt’s border with Gaza amid urgent efforts to avert famine in the territory after more than five months of devastating war.
“Palestinians in Gaza – children, women, men – remain stuck in a non-stop nightmare,” Guterres said. “I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world who have seen enough.”
Continue reading...Reports of exorbitant cost of basic vegetables, as well as oil and flour, come amid warnings that Gaza is on the verge of famine
People living in Gaza are facing exorbitant food prices as more than 1 million residents of the Palestinian territory face famine.
Since Israel’s invasion in October, it has become common for Gaza’s displaced population to share pictures of their shopping baskets and document how high prices have risen amid food shortages.
Continue reading...High commissioner for human rights describes crisis as human-made as hunger levels worsen
Israeli restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza may amount to the war crime of deliberate starvation, the UN has said, as the White House called for unimpeded access for aid to the coastal strip.
Amid mounting and catastrophic hunger in parts of Gaza, and official UN figures for hunger levels which are the worst seen under the current classification system, the Biden administration added it was “deeply concerned” following a report about potential famine.
Continue reading...Three C-130 aircraft dropped a total of 66 bundles of aid to the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel
The US air force began airdrops of aid over Gaza on Saturday afternoon, in a joint operation with Jordanian planes in a last-resort attempt to get food into the besieged coastal strip as mass starvation looms.
US officials said that US and Jordanian C-130 planes taking off from Jordan dropped 66 pallets of food, containing a total of 38,000 meals at mid-afternoon local time, in the first of a series of airdrops that Joe Biden announced on Friday.
Continue reading...Witnesses claim victims shot ‘execution style’ during house raids after clashes between government forces and Fano rebels
Ethiopian government troops went door-to-door killing dozens of civilians last month in a town in the country’s Amhara region, according to residents, who said the bloodshed took place after clashes with local militia.
The killings in Merawi appear to be one of the deadliest episodes in Amhara since a rebellion by Fano, an armed Amhara group, erupted last year over a disputed plan to disarm regional forces.
Continue reading...Ten months of armed conflict in the country has displaced nearly 11 million people and left half the population facing hunger
There is “epic suffering” in Sudan says the UN, where fighting between rival military factions since April has created the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis and raised fears of state failure.
On Wednesday, the UN appealed for $4.1bn (£3. 25bn) to meet humanitarian needs, amid warnings by the UN’s World Food Programme that people are starving to death in areas cut off by fighting.
Continue reading...People vent their frustration on social media as many given just beans and biscuits to eat, and donated food is found for sale in markets
A couple of biscuits and a can of beans is all that many Palestinians in Gaza say is being given to families to live on, if they receive aid at all, and that they are finding donated items for sale in the markets.
The risk of famine is increasing every day, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which said this week that Gaza’s entire population is suffering “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”, the highest proportion of a population with acute food insecurity the monitor has ever recorded.
Continue reading...World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.
Continue reading...Israeli military expansion seen as likely alongside acute shortages of of food and water
The UN has said Gaza’s civilians face the “immediate possibility” of starvation, amid mounting concerns about Israeli plans to expand military operations in parts of the south where people have sought refuge from fighting.
Fuel shortages on Friday halted aid shipments and blacked out communications across the strip. The UN said its trucks could not move and it could not coordinate deliveries. Palestinian network operators said they could no longer power the phone and internet systems.
Continue reading...Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals
Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.
At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.
Continue reading...Of 2,664 households interviewed in Croix-des-Bouquets and Delmas, 2,596 were usually getting one meal a day, survey found
Haiti’s hunger crisis is now so acute that 97% of households in some areas around the capital are suffering from severe hunger, according to a new survey by the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps.
Of 2,664 households interviewed in the neighbourhoods of Croix-des-Bouquets and Delmas, 2,596 were suffering from severe hunger and usually getting no more than one meal a day.
Continue reading...Up to 17,000 more children a day lack food, Save the Children say, as global indifference to humanitarian crisis condemned as ‘racist’
The past four months of fighting in Sudan has pushed millions into food insecurity – with an additional 1.5 million children expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger by September – as aid agencies say they are struggling to reach people.
Up to 17,000 children a day have been falling into crisis levels of hunger, Save the Children warned on Tuesday. With 4 million people displaced so far, the charity said more people were facing hunger in Sudan than at any point since records there began in 2012.
Continue reading...The World Food Programme’s Haiti response is only 16% funded with more than half of the country’s population regularly hungry
The World Food Programme (WFP) will be unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month as the UN agency has insufficient funding to meet burgeoning humanitarian needs in the embattled Caribbean nation.
Haitians grappling with dire malnutrition will have to endure the absence of vital food and financial support amid the worst hunger crisis the country has ever witnessed, the WFP announced on Monday.
Continue reading...Starting in Nairobi, the initiative aims to provide daily lunches for 4 million primary school children and to ‘eliminate the shame of hunger’
The largest school meals programme in Africa is to begin in Nairobi this August, in a drive to “eliminate the shame of hunger in [Kenya]”.
Ten new kitchens, now under construction, will provide 400,000 daily lunches for children in 225 primary schools and Early Childhood Development centres in the Kenyan capital. The programme will start on 28 August, the first day of the autumn term, and the kitchens will employ 3,500 people.
Continue reading...Acute hunger is affecting 4.9 million Haitians, according to a UN report, which outlines the increased need for humanitarian aid
Haitians are increasingly desperate for humanitarian aid as gang violence engulfing the country has left nearly half the population regularly going hungry, a World Food Programme (WFP) report has found.
“These are the worst conditions on record,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP’s Haiti director. “Food insecurity in Haiti has been going downhill and Haiti is sliding into a hunger emergency.”
Continue reading...Catholic charity Cafod says local NGOs are best placed to respond on the frontline but are being cut out of the process
South Sudan is facing the world’s most severe food insecurity crisis, yet the local groups most effective at delivering aid are not being directly funded, according to a new report.
Only 0.4% of humanitarian funding meant for food is directly channelled towards South Sudanese NGOs, despite them being the most effective at tackling hunger, according to the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod).
Continue reading...An open letter, backed by opinion poll, urges the UK to restore aid budget on eve of a three-day ‘pilgrimage for peace’ in the east African country
The British government’s financial support for Ukraine must not be at the cost of aid to other areas of the world in crisis, three faith-based charities have warned, on the eve of an unprecedented joint pilgrimage to South Sudan led by Pope Francis.
The organisations are calling on the government to restore the 59% cut in the UK’s aid budget to South Sudan, and invest in peacebuilding, conflict management and reconciliation.
Continue reading...‘Famine in all but name’ ravaging Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, yet British aid is one-fifth of 2017 amount
The UK urgently needs to do more to help more than 28 million people in drought-stricken Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, two former secretaries of state for international development and the heads of 14 of the UK’s leading aid agencies have warned in a joint letter to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
They say one person is dying every 36 seconds, yet British aid to the region is only one-fifth of what Britain provided when the region was struck by famine in 2017. More than 7 million children are acutely malnourished across the three countries.
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