Category Archives: Aid

Let them eat bugs: UK urges hunger-stricken African nations to farm insects

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Aid projects in DRC and Zimbabwe encourage rural inhabitants to eat insects rich in vitamins and minerals

UK aid spending is encouraging hunger-stricken Africans to eat insects, with projects aiming to develop the practice in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe.

Edible insects have long been touted as a resource-efficient source of protein, requiring less land and water than conventional livestock. However, taste and cultural resistance have proved to be stumbling blocks in extending the practice in many parts of the world.

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Health officials warn of major outbreaks of disease after severe floods in Pakistan

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Diarrhoea and malaria cases spread, with risk of dysentery and cholera, as millions of displaced people forced to drink flood water

Health officials have warned of large-scale outbreaks of disease in Pakistan after severe flooding displaced millions of people.

A rise in cases of diarrhoea and malaria has been reported after months of heavy rains left people stranded and without access to clean water.

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UN and Pakistan appeal for $160m to help flooding victims

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Call for emergency funding as nearly half a million people displaced and estimated $10bn damage to economy

The United Nations and Pakistan are to appeal for $160m (£135m) in emergency funding for the nearly half a million people displaced by record-breaking floods that have killed more than 1,150 people since mid-June.

Large areas remain underwater and more than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the floods. Rescuers have been evacuating stranded people to safer ground.

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Hunger in Tigray pushing women and girls into sex work

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People in Ethiopian region turn to desperate measures after authorities stop 6 million people accessing their own money

Hunger in the besieged region of Tigray is pushing people to increasingly desperate measures as the authorities are systematically blocking and confiscating remittances needed by millions of people.

Banking services and all communications have been cut off to the state by the Ethiopian administration since last year, with 6 million people denied access to their own money.

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Neglect Africa now and we will face labour shortages globally, IMF warns

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West’s response to effects of Covid and Ukraine war condemned as shortsighted ‘collective failure’ to invest in future human capital

The international community would be “playing with fire” if it failed to help Africa recover from Covid and the impact of the Ukraine war, the International Monetary Fund’s director for the continent has said.

Failure to invest and support the continent was shortsighted and detrimental to the global economy, as half of the new entrants into the global workforce over the next decade would come from sub-Saharan Africa, Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF’s Africa department, told the Guardian.

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Taliban say they will not interfere with Afghanistan earthquake aid

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Aid organisations complain the group in the past has tried to divert aid to supporters of their insurgency

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have pledged not to interfere with international efforts to distribute aid to tens of thousands of people affected by this week’s deadly earthquake.

Even before Wednesday’s quake the country was in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, with aid flows and financial assistance severely curtailed since the Taliban’s return to power.

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Isolated Afghanistan may face struggle for aid after earthquake

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Analysis: humanitarian appeals for Taliban-ruled country have had poor responses and there are sanctions complications

As Afghanistan reels from a powerful earthquake and starts to bury its more than 1,000 dead, the Taliban leadership in Kabul have appealed to the international community to clear any barriers created by sanctions and come to their aid.

“The government is working within its capabilities,” tweeted Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official. “We hope that the International Community & aid agencies will also help our people in this dire situation.”

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Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’

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Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine

Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.

In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.

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‘Marching towards starvation’: UN warns of hell on earth if Ukraine war goes on

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Unprecedented food shortages could spark riots in dozens of countries as Black Sea blockade adds to pressures, says WFP chief

Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned.

Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia.

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Closing Syria aid route would be ‘catastrophe’, UN warned

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Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from Turkey

The last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.

On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib.

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Millions at risk in South Sudan as Ukraine war forces slashing of aid

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Drastic cuts to World Food Programme assistance will leave people ‘looking death in the face’ unless global donors offer support

The World Food Programme has said it is suspending food aid to 1.7 million people in South Sudan, as the war in Ukraine sucks funding from the world’s crisis-plagued youngest country and causes the price of staples to soar.

The UN’s emergency food assistance agency said it had planned to deliver aid to more than 6 million acutely food-insecure people in South Sudan this year, as it did in 2021, albeit with smaller rations.

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David Lammy visits Afghanistan to highlight humanitarian crisis

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Shadow foreign secretary says UK government ignoring catastrophe as millions of Afghans go hungry

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has flown to Kabul to see at first-hand the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

Lammy is the first senior British politician to visit the country since the west’s chaotic pullout last August. He is being accompanied on his visit by Preet Gill, the shadow minister for international development.

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‘You hear bullets, you run’: Congolese refugees stream over Uganda’s border

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As thousands flee the latest fighting in DRC to join 1.5m already in Uganda, the UN’s food aid agency is stretched as never before

The rain will determine what time Uwimana Nsengiyuava gets on the truck to Nyakabande transit centre, where Uganda is hosting 20,000 refugees who, like her, have fled fresh fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Since March, up to 500 refugees a day have been silently streaming into the east African country via Kisoro, a picturesque district in south-west Uganda dotted with endless hills, streams and a lake.

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Médecins Sans Frontières apologises for using images of child rape survivor

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Medical charity’s president calls publication of controversial photographs ‘a mistake’ and says guidelines will be tightened

The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières has apologised for publishing photographs of a teenage rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its website, following criticism that the images were unethical and racist.

Dr Christos Christou also announced that the medical charity had tightened its guidelines on photographing vulnerable minors, such as survivors of sexual abuse, requiring that they should not be identified visually or by name.

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‘I saw an oncologist cry’: Tigray cancer patients sent home to die for lack of drugs

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Doctors call for international help as Ethiopia civil war leaves terminally ill being treated with paracetamol in Mekelle hospital

Doctors caring for cancer patients at the main hospital in Tigray say they have only two chemotherapy drugs left in date and are treating terminally ill people with expired medication and paracetamol. Eighteen months of war have left the sickest in society suffering agonising deaths, they say.

For the first time in 11 months, doctors at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle took receipt of an oral chemotherapy drug earlier this month as part of an airlift by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Until then, they had had only one, Doxorubicin, still in date.

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Britain slashes humanitarian aid by 51% despite global food crisis

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Campaigners say ministers must change course as millions face famine in Africa and the Ukraine war threatens to disrupt global food supplies

Ministers have been accused of choosing the “worst moment in history” to slash the foreign aid budget, as provisional figures showed that UK overseas humanitarian funding was cut by more than half last year.

MPs and charity campaigners say the aid budget urgently needs to be increased to cope with the Ukraine conflict and the risk of famine in Africa. Up to 23 million people face acute hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia due to drought.

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Hunger crisis grips Horn of Africa – but 80% of Britons unaware, poll shows

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UK government urged to act as worst drought in 40 years threatens region while aid efforts and global attention remain focused on Ukraine war

The UK government has been urged to give the hunger crisis gripping the Horn of Africa “proper attention”, as new polling showed just two in 10 people in Britain are aware that the worst drought in 40 years is even taking place, let alone threatening famine.

As the war in Ukraine rages, the combined effect of three failed rainy seasons has pushed parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the brink, killing livestock, forcing people to leave their homes and increasing levels of child malnutrition. The Russian invasion has exacerbated the situation, pushing up the price of staples such as wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fuel.

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UK aid cuts have forced 40,000 Syrian children out of school, charity says

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Funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, leaving pupils at risk of child labour and early marriage

More than 40,000 Syrian children are out of school as a direct result of British aid cuts and more schools could soon close, a leading charity has said.

British funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, as the government cut its total foreign aid spending from its commitment of 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.

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UK plan to label Houthis as terrorists risks disaster in Yemen, aid bodies warn

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Exclusive: agencies write letter to government after learning home secretary is pushing for designation

Yemen could be afflicted by an even worse humanitarian catastrophe if the UK government goes ahead with a plan to designate the Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, leading aid agencies have warned cabinet ministers in a letter.

The 11 UK agencies are some of those most active in Yemen, and include Save the Children, Care, the International Rescue Committee and Islamic Relief.

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First food aid for 100 days enters Tigray under ‘humanitarian truce’

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Besieged region has an estimated 2 million people suffering from an extreme lack of food

A convoy of aid trucks has arrived in Tigray, the first emergency food supplies to reach the besieged region of northern Ethiopia by road for more than 100 days.

Two weeks after Abiy Ahmed’s government declared an immediate “humanitarian truce” with rebel Tigrayan forces to allow aid in, the World Food Programme said it had received the assurances it needed to dispatch 20 trucks containing vital supplies of food.

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