Six trucks of humanitarian supplies looted while airstrikes in Khartoum undermine ceasefire
Aid agencies are pleading with battling factions in Sudan to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the needy, after six trucks of humanitarian supplies were looted and airstrikes in Khartoum undermined a new ceasefire.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said on Wednesday he was seeking assurances that would allow for movement of staff and supplies.
Continue reading...The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, which is openly homophobic, is a direct recipient of UK aid money
The UK government is helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence, a report has found.
Analysing official data given to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found a “staggering” number of connections between anti-LGBTQ+ organisations in Uganda and international aid donors, including the UK.
Continue reading...Hopes of 24-hour ceasefire to evacuate civilians and wounded after US secretary of state intervenes
Fighting continued in Sudan hours after an internationally brokered truce was supposed to have come into effect, as forces loyal to dueling generals battled for key locations in the capital and accused each other of violating the cease-fire.
At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in more than four days of fighting that has pitted army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing sovereign council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council. Their power struggle has derailed a shift to civilian rule and raised fears of a wider conflict.
Continue reading...Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation
The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.
The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.
Continue reading...Package similar to 2005 deal needed as struggling African countries suffer severe funding squeeze, says official
Western countries need to put together a debt relief and aid package to match that of the landmark Gleneagles summit deal in 2005 in order to counter a severe funding squeeze affecting struggling African countries, the International Monetary Fund has said.
Abebe Selassie, the director of the IMF’s African department, said without a scaling up of financial support some of the world’s poorest countries would have no chance of meeting the 2030 UN goals for poverty reduction.
Continue reading...Foreign Office figures show aid to Africa fell to £1.1bn in 2022, compared with £3.7bn of budget spent on refugees in UK
The UK spent more than three times its overseas aid budget on housing refugees in Britain than on helping to alleviate poverty in Africa in 2022, figures from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show.
The official provisional figures for 2022 show that spending on refugees increased from £597m in 2020 to £1bn in 2021 and reached £3.7bn in 2022. No other major country in the world is cutting its mainstream aid budget to cover the cost of housing refugees in this way, said the aid campaign group Bond.
Continue reading...Country gives just $1 in assistance for every $10 that goes to defence, humanitarian groups say
The huge Aukus price tag has sparked calls to boost aid funding, with the sector lobbying the Australian government not to dismiss such measures as an optional “luxury”.
The nuclear-powered submarine program is forecast to cost between $268bn and $368bn by the mid 2050s, most of it beyond the first four-year budget period.
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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...Slashing funding to the programme from a promised £7m to just £1m sends a ‘stark message to the world’, says Save the Children
The UK government has cut almost £6m in funding to a programme in Afghanistan supporting vulnerable women and girls.
Save the Children said it has been told by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that it will receive just over £1m of a promised £7m to support more than 100,000 people to access essential basic services such as healthcare and education.
Continue reading...Programme spent £2.7bn between 2016 and 2021 but is fragmented and lacks a clear rationale, report says
Britain’s aid programme to India is fragmented, lacks a clear rationale and does little to counter the negative trends in human rights and democracy in the country, the government’s aid watchdog has found.
The findings are likely to be used by those who claim the UK government risks using its aid programme to deepen its relationship with India, including seeking free trade deals, rather than attempting to reduce poverty, which is the statutory purpose of UK aid.
Continue reading...The charity was taken to court for its work in the Middle East by the US body, whose director justifies litigation against NGOs that ‘cross the line’
A leading NGO has broken its silence on a bruising legal battle with a pro-Israeli advocacy group, describing it as an act of “lawfare” aimed at inflicting financial and reputational damage on organisations that do charitable work with Palestinians.
Christian Aid, the UK-based charity, was forced to spend about £700,000 defending itself against accusations that it had provided “material support” to terrorists, chief executive Patrick Watt has said.
Continue reading...Number falls well short of target to respond to one of world’s biggest humanitarian disasters
The United Nations has raised about $1.2bn (£996m) from crisis-strained donors towards its $4.3bn aid plan for Yemen, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters despite a no-war, no-peace stalemate that has largely stopped fighting.
Underfunding has seen agencies scale back Yemen aid projects, including food rations, in the past couple of years. Last year donors gave $2.2bn of the $4.27bn sought, UN data shows.
Continue reading...World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%
The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts.
Continue reading...First relief housing units arrive in Hatay province, Amazon sends food and blankets and Allianz donates €6m
The Ikea Foundation has sent 5,000 flatpack shelters to southern Turkey and northern Syria to house people left homeless by the earthquake last week, as companies around the world pledge help.
The Swedish homeware multinational’s philanthropy arm said on Tuesday it had donated €10m (£8.8m) to the NGO Better Shelter, with which it developed the robust, award-winning 17.5 sq metre shelters that fit in two boxes and can be assembled without tools.
Continue reading...UN announces regime leader’s acceptance of border crossing points for humanitarian aid to reach rebel-held province
The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, has agreed to open two border crossing points to allow in a greater volume of emergency aid for victims of the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, and killed 36,000 people.
Assad’s decision was announced and welcomed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who said the two crossing points between Turkey and north-west Syria, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, would be open “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid”.
Continue reading...Turkish rescue efforts wind down amid grief and anger while UN calls for aid access to north-west Syria
A diminishing number of survivors have been pulled from the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria as the death toll climbed to over 35,000 and UN aid officials pushed for more aid access to rebel-controlled north-west Syria, where only one crossing from Turkey was open.
Search and rescue teams began to wind down their work on Monday as hopes of finding anyone alive faded, but there were cheers in Turkish cities when people were freed after seven days under the rubble, including a young girl named Miray in Adıyaman and a 12-year-old boy named Kaan in southern Hatay province.
Continue reading...Former al-Nusra Front chief keen to show scale of crisis in Idlib province and play down past links to al-Qaida
A Syrian rebel leader with a $10m (£8.3m) US government bounty on his head has appealed for urgent international aid to help the north-west province of Idlib after the earthquakes that have killed thousands and brought the last opposition-controlled area to its knees.
“The United Nations needs to understand that it’s required to help in a crisis,” said Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, better known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, amid a humanitarian crisis that had already reached critical levels in Idlib before the twin earthquakes last week.
Continue reading...Determination to get donations to stricken areas is galvanising people haunted by fears for family and friends
Dozens of volunteers are packing boxes piled high on a north London industrial estate, filling them with vital donations to be sent to Gaziantep, the south-eastern province in Turkey devastated by the earthquake that hit in the early hours on Monday.
Huseyin Goran, 36, has been helping for three days straight. “The first two days I didn’t sleep and did as much as I could. I took a three-hour rest and carried on.”
Continue reading...Rescue teams say death tolls will continue to rise if UN does not speed up ‘overly cautious’ delivery of aid into rebel-held region
Pressure is mounting on the UN to provide urgent support to north-western Syria, which is yet to receive meaningful aid five days after the earthquake that devastated the region, and with the chance of finding any survivors beneath the rubble almost gone.
A convoy of 14 UN lorries entered the opposition-held part of the country from Turkey on Friday at the Bab al-Hawa crossing, containing humanitarian-kit, solar lamps, blankets and other items, one day after a six-lorry convoy crossed the border with blankets and basic supplies. Thursday’s convoy had been arranged before the disaster that has killed at least 3,500 people inside Syria and left thousands more buried under rubble.
Continue reading...Dispute with Damascus over who controls aid hinders efforts to get supplies into rebel-held north
Syria was accused of playing politics with aid after the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, said his country should be responsible for the delivery of all aid into Syria, including those areas not under Syrian government control.
The dispute over the control of the aid – along with the weather, destroyed roads and closed crossing points – is hampering aid efforts into northern Syria, which is held by rebel groups.
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