Category Archives: Humanitarian response

The world over, people in crisis suffer sexual violence – this scourge must end

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Tackling gender violence in crises requires changes of response and focus – as delegates in Oslo for a major summit will be told

Nomtaz Begum had lived all her life in Myanmar. Two years ago, men in uniform came to her village. They killed the men there, including her husband and three small children, boys aged two, five and 11.

She was raped by six of the soldiers, one after the other. They left after setting her house on fire. Badly burned, Begum and her daughter hid in the forest for four days before they were able to flee, making their way to a refugee camp.

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Cyclone Idai: ‘My family needs to eat, I don’t know how we will survive’

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In Mozambique, where many people rely on crops to live, Idai’s impact on two key agricultural areas has been devastating

Marie Jose stares out at her field of broken maize stalks, the cobs yellow and mouldy from days of excessive water followed by weeks of extreme sun. She should have harvested them last month, but Cyclone Idai struck her village in Buzi district, in central Mozambique, and destroyed them all.

She is still dealing with the trauma of losing her grandparents and niece to the tropical storm. “They couldn’t hold on in the trees where we were sitting and the wind pushed them into the water,” she says. Their bodies are still missing.

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Devastation of shelling in Hodeidah: ‘My daughters died hungry’ | Rod Austin and Karl Schembri

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As a voluntary agreement is struck for forces to withdraw from the port city, two friends recount the horror of conflict in their neighbourhood in Yemen

Friends Majed Al-Wahidi and Ali Al-Zazai remember the constant buzzing of drones overhead in Hodeidah on 18 November last year.

Majed, a teacher and father of six daughters, had left Ali’s house to return to his home nearby, but went back because he had forgotten his lighter. It was about 5pm and Majed’s daughters were in their bedroom, having taken a break from studying to pray in their modest, corrugated iron-covered home.

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Red Cross aid to Venezuela to triple as Maduro stance softens

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International Committee of the Red Cross to increase budget to $24m after president approves humanitarian assistance

The International Committee of the Red Cross is to triple aid to Venezuela, a day after the crisis-riven country’s leader approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

The organisation announced the increase in the face of mounting calls for the UN to recognise the scale of the crisis facing Venezuela, and amid continued moves by the Trump administration to persuade other countries to back its calls for the removal of President Nicolás Maduro.

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Why were the people worst affected by Cyclone Idai so badly prepared? | Antonio Matimbe

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While the world’s poorest bear the brunt of ever more powerful storms, international leaders do little to address the devastating impact of climate change

I am a Mozambican aid agency communicator. Cyclone Idai is just the latest humanitarian crisis I have been involved in.

Mozambique has a history of being affected by huge storms. The upsetting thing to me is that while international leaders and experts talk about climate change and the impact this is having on the world, the very poorest are bearing the brunt of ever more powerful storms.

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Cyclone Idai crisis deepens as first cases of cholera confirmed in Mozambique

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Five people test positive for waterborne disease in flooded port city of Beira amid warnings outbreak will spread

The first cases of cholera have been reported in the cyclone-ravaged Mozambican city of Beira, complicating an already massive and complex emergency in the southern African country.

The announcement of five cases of the waterborne disease follows days of mounting fears that cholera and other diseases could break out in the squalid conditions in which tens of thousands have been living since Cyclone Idai struck on 14 March, killing at least 700 people across the region.

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‘The water took everything’: Buzi evacuees tell of Cyclone Idai ordeal

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People rescued by boat are arriving at Beira in hope of first aid, shelter and reunion with their families

Standing in the fishing port in Beira, Mozambique, Jose Mala scans the faces of those evacuated by boat from Buzi – one of the towns hardest hit by Cyclone Idai – searching for anyone he knows.

He had hopeful news the day before, says Mala, 27. He met a neighbour at the port who told him his sister and two nephews had survived the cyclone that destroyed large parts of their hometown.

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Three people dying in Yemen every day despite ceasefire agreement

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Since the Stockholm deal in December, airstrikes on Hodeidah have decreased but casualties have doubled elsewhere

Yemen is continuing to experience a steady stream of violence, claiming at least one life every eight hours – despite the agreements reached between the internationally recognised government and the Houthis at talks in Sweden just over three months ago.

According to figures compiled by two international aid agencies, in some areas of the country the number of casualties, far from falling, had doubled where the conflict was flaring up.

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Trump has turned foreign aid into shabby political theatre | Peter Beaumont

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Stalled relief supplies for Venezuela at the Colombian border are a stark illustration of Trump’s crudely transactional approach to aid

In their grey livery, the US Air Force C-17s shuttling into Camilo Daza airport in Cúcuta, Colombia, look more belligerent than friendly – which is, perhaps, the point.

In the city itself, the planes’ cargo – boxes labelled USAid and intended for distribution by the Venezuelan opposition just across the border – are accumulating in the town’s warehouses.

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I witnessed the purgatory of people trapped in Syria’s Rukban camp | Marwa Awad

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Constant hunger and thirst haunt those stranded in the desert, where escape means paying vast sums to smugglers

Between the southern border of Syria, Jordan and Iraq lies a stretch of land akin to purgatory. More than 40,000 people are stranded in Rukban, almost 300km from Damascus.

Families here are cut off from the world, facing hunger and lacking healthcare, transport and education.

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Have world leaders really got the will to bring peace to Yemen?

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We hear much about Yemen’s crisis, but far less about the hypocrisy of states fuelling the very conflict they condemn

During his historic recent visit to the United Arab Emirates, Pope Francis condemned the war in my home country, Yemen, as a terrible humanitarian crisis.

Addressing the world he said: “Let us pray strongly, because there are children who are hungry, who are thirsty – they don’t have medicine and they are in danger of death”.

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