Tag Archives: Famine

Convoy rolls into Damascus suburbs with aid for 40,000

Smoke rises at a damaged site in Ain Tarma, eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria, September 14, 2017.

GENEVA (Reuters) – A convoy from the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent entered towns in the besieged Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta on Monday, bringing aid to 40,000 people for the first time since June 2016, the United Nations said.

A tightening siege by government forces has pushed people to the verge of famine in the eastern suburbs, residents and aid workers said last week, bringing desperation to the only major rebel enclave near the Syrian capital.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Twitter they had entered the towns of Kafra Batna and Saqba.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent said in a separate tweet that the inter-agency convoy had 49 trucks.

They carried food, nutrition and health items for 40,000 people in need, OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said. “The last time we reached these two locations were in June 2016,” he said.

A health worker in Saqba who was present when the convoy started to offload said that nine trucks of foodstuffs, including milk and peanut butter, and four trucks of medicines had arrived so far.

Technical specialists were on board to assess needs in the towns in order to plan a further humanitarian response, he said.

“More aid to complement today’s delivery is planned in the coming days,” Laerke added.

At least 1,200 children in eastern Ghouta suffer from malnutrition, with 1,500 others at risk, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said last week.

Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), said the convoy carried nutrition supplies for 16,000 children.

Food, fuel and medicine once travelled across frontlines into the suburbs through a network of underground tunnels. But early this year, an army offensive nearby cut smuggling routes that provided a lifeline for around 300,000 people in the enclave east of the capital.

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Alison Williams and Peter Graff)

 

Mosul Old City residents spend hungry and fearful Ramadan under IS rule

Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – For Salam, a resident in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, the holy fasting month of Ramadan this year is the worst he’s seen in a lifetime marked by wars and deprivations.

“We are slowly dying from hunger, boiling mouldy wheat as soup” to break the fast at sunset, the 47 year-old father of three said by phone from the district besieged by Iraqi forces, asking to withhold his name fearing the militants’ retribution.

The only wish he makes in his prayers is for his family to survive the final days of the self-proclaimed caliphate declared three years ago by IS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a nearby mosque.

The eight-month old U.S.-backed campaign to capture Mosul, IS’s de-facto capital in Iraq, reached its deadliest phase just as the holy Muslim month started at the end of May, when militants became squeezed in and around the densely populated Old City.

Up to 200,000 people are trapped behind their lines, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds have been killed while trying to escape to government-held lines, caught in the cross-fire or gunned down by Islamic State snipers. The militants want civilians to remain in areas under their control to use them as human shields.

Many bodies of the dead remain in the street near the frontlines. Four of them are relatives of Khalil, a former civil servant who quit his job after IS took over Mosul.

“Daesh warned us not to bury them to make them an example for others who try to flee,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Those who decide not to run the risk of fleeing are living in fear of getting killed or wounded in their homes, with little food and water and limited access to healthcare.

“Seeing my kids hungry is real torture,” said Salam, who closed his home appliances shop shortly after the start of the offensive as sales came to a complete stop.”I wish the security forces would eliminate all Daesh fighters in a flash; I want my family to have normal life again.”

Where food can be found, the price has risen more than 20-fold. A kilo of rice is selling for more than $40. A kilo of flour or lentils is $20 or more.

The sellers are mainly households who stockpiled enough food and medicine to dare sell some, but only to trusted neighbors or relatives, or in return for items they need. If militants find food they take it.

Residents fill water from a few wells dug in the soil. The wait is long and dangerous as shelling is frequent.

“The well-water has a bitter taste and we can smell sewage sometimes, but we have to drink to stay alive,” said Umm Saad, a widow and mother of four, complaining that the militants are often seen with bottled water and canned food.

“We have been under compulsory fasting even before the start of Ramadan,” she said. “No real food to eat, just hardened old bread and mouldy grains.”

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps. But in areas still held by the militants escape has become harder than ever.

“Fleeing is like committing suicide,” said Khalil, the ex-civil servant, who lives near the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, the offensive’s symbolic focus, where Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph.

IS’s black flag has been flying over its landmark leaning minaret since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants, giving them their biggest prize, a city at least four times bigger than any other they came to control in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Peter Graff)

Funds shortage forces U.N. to cut emergency food aid for 400,000 in Nigeria

A woman sits outside a shed as she waits for food rations at an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

By Ed Cropley

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has had to scale back plans for emergency feeding of 400,000 people in Boko Haram-hit northeast Nigeria due to funding shortfalls, a top U.N. official said on Wednesday.

The decision to cut aid for some believed to be on the brink of famine comes as the onset of the annual rains threaten to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. Farmers have been unable to plant or harvest crops for years due to the Islamist insurgency.

“The plan was from the beginning to reach 1.8 million (people) this year but due to the funding constraints WFP has been forced to come up with a contingency plan,” said Peter Lundberg, the U.N.’s Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria.

The WFP is now focusing on supplying 1.4 million people deemed to be most at risk, with assistance for the remainder cut by around a third, Lundberg told Reuters in Maiduguri, capital of the hardest-hit state of Borno.

The U.N. says it needs $1.05 billion this year to deal with the crisis – one of three humanitarian emergencies unfolding in Africa – but has only received just over a quarter of that.

The reductions in Nigeria come a month after the WFP halved the monthly rations of more than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda because of a lack of funds.

MAROONED

More than 20,000 people are thought to have died and 2.7 million have been displaced in Boko Haram’s bloody eight-year battle to establish a medieval Islamic caliphate.

Two years ago, the group controlled an area the size of Belgium but a military push by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger has ejected the militants from cities and major towns.

However, according to the latest U.N. assessments, huge swathes of land remain no-go zones, even with military escorts. As many as 700,000 people might still be trapped in these areas, Lundberg said.

The rainy season also makes it harder to bring in emergency supplies of food and medicine as dirt roads turn to rivers of mud for up to three months.

“Some of these places will be completely locked in because of the rain,” Lundberg said. “When the rain comes, we know there will be very big challenges.”

Furthermore, aid agencies have been prevented from building up large supply centres outside cities such as Maiduguri for fear they will be attacked.

In the town of Rann near the Cameroon border, nearly 50,000 people are about to become marooned with only two weeks’ supply of food to hand, said Dana Krause, an emergency coordinator for the Swiss arm of the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

“The populations along the border are pretty much entirely dependent on external aid,” Krause said. “And by the end of July, Rann will literally be an island.”

As a last resort, a WFP spokeswoman said it was considering air drops for the most inaccessible areas.

Nigeria’s military did not respond to a request for comment.

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

As Yemen faces famine, U.N. works to avert attack on food port

A woman and her children, displaced by the war in northwestern Yemen, are pictured next to their makeshift hut on the pavement of a street in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A quarter of Yemen’s people are on the brink of famine, parents are marrying off young daughters so someone else can care for them and cholera cases are escalating, U.N. officials warned on Tuesday as they work to avert a Saudi-led attack on a key port.

The United Nations has warned the Arab alliance fighting Iran-aligned Houthis against any attempt to extend the war to Hodeidah, a vital Red Sea aid delivery point where some 80 percent of Yemen’s food imports arrive.

“An attack on Hodeidah is not in the interest of any party, as it will directly and irrevocably drive the Yemeni population further into starvation and famine,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the U.N. Security Council, urging all U.N. member states to help keep the port open and operating.

“Yemen now has the ignominy of being the world’s largest food security crisis with more than 17 million people who are food insecure, 6.8 million of whom are one step away from famine. Crisis is not coming, it is not even looming, it is here today,” he said.

The Saudi-led coalition has said it was determined to help Yemen’s government retake all areas held by Houthi militia, including Hodeidah port, but would ensure alternative entry routes for badly needed food and medicine.

U.N. Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the Security Council on Tuesday he had made clear to the parties to the conflict that they must reach a compromise to avoid the “horrific scenario” of military action moving to the port.

However, he noted the Houthis and the allied General People’s Congress, the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, did not meet with him in the capital Sanaa to discuss a possible agreement that he had proposed.

O’Brien said a $2.1 billion humanitarian strategy and plan for Yemen was only a quarter funded.

“Yemen is not facing a drought. If there was no conflict … a famine would certainly be avoidable and averted,” he said. “Families are increasingly marrying off their young daughters to have someone else to care for them, and often use the dowry to pay for basic necessities.”

O’Brien also said there had been some 55,000 suspected cases of cholera since April and estimated another 150,000 cases were expected over the next six months.

“Had the parties to the conflict cared, the outbreak was avoidable,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Italy looks to put G7 focus on Africa, but other crises encroach

A general view of the Greek Theatre of Taormina, where leaders from the world's major Western powers will hold their annual summit, in Taormina Italy May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello

By Crispian Balmer

ROME (Reuters) – When U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders of the world’s seven major industrialized nations gather in Sicily on Friday, they will enjoy a spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea, but won’t get any glimpse of boats full of migrants.

A common sight off Sicily in recent years, the authorities have banned all migrant landings on the island during the Group of Seven Summit for security reasons, telling rescue vessels that pick them up at sea to take them to the mainland during the two-day meeting.

Out of sight does not mean out of mind. Italy chose to host the summit in Taormina, on the cliffs of eastern Sicily, to concentrate minds on Europe’s migrant crisis and to seek ways of developing Africa’s economy to hold back the human tide.

“Africa is very important for us. Indeed, it is perhaps the focus of our G7 presidency,” said Raffaele Trombetta, the senior Italian diplomat who has led behind-the-scenes negotiations on the G7 agenda with colleagues from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Canada.

“We don’t just want to talk about crises, like migration and famine, but also to promote innovation in Africa and see what we can do to help,” he told Reuters.

But various other crises are bound to encroach on the meeting, starting with Monday’s suicide bombing in Manchester that killed at least 22 people and was allegedly carried out by a young British man of Libyan descent.

The six-year old Syrian conflict and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are other hot-button issues. Potential disagreements over climate change and free trade might also overshadow the event in the chic resort town.

Trump will face concerted pressure to commit to the 2015 Paris Agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions and to water down his protectionist trade tendencies.

Diplomats said there had been no agreement on these issues ahead of the gathering, meaning the leaders will seek to strike an accord amongst themselves. One diplomat from an EU country said the other G7 nations might issue a separate statement on climate change if Trump refused to endorse the Paris deal.

NEWCOMERS VS VETERANS

Trump will be one of four leaders making their first appearance at a G7, alongside newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May and the host, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

It will be a second G7 for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a 6th for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the 12th for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“There are so many new leaders here. It will provide an excellent opportunity for them to get to know each other and hopefully have a relaxed meeting,” said Trombetta.

One thing that will change from recent summits is that the final communique will be much more concise – down from more than 30 pages last year to fewer than 10 pages this time around.

“We hope that in this way more people actually read it,” an Italian diplomat joked.

Underscoring the importance of Africa, the leaders of Tunisia, Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya will join the discussions on Saturday morning.

Italy had hoped to use the occasion to unveil a multi-billion euro project promoting food security, but neither the United States nor Japan backed it, so the scheme has been scaled back, a diplomatic source said.

However, Italy is determined to encourage a plan to sponsor young African entrepreneurs, looking for ways to strengthen the continent’s economy and dissuade people from fleeing to Europe.

More than half a million migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, have reached Italy since 2014 as smugglers took advantage of the chaos in Libya to cram people onto unsafe boats for the dangerous crossing.

The Italian Interior Ministry said on Tuesday more than 50,000 migrants have come ashore so far this year, a record pace for arrivals and up 46 percent on the same period last year. More than 1,300 people have died during the crossing.

“This is a thing that cannot be solved very quickly. We have to think about maybe 20-30 years. We have to improve the living conditions and take Africa seriously,” said Mathias Menge, who oversees rescues on the humanitarian boat Aquarius, which has brought thousands of migrants to Sicily over the past year.

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer)

War forces two million South Sudanese children to flee homes

FILE PHOTO: A child displaced due to fighting in South Sudan arrives in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda

NAIROBI (Reuters) – War and famine have forced more than 2 million children in South Sudan to flee their homes, the United Nations said on Monday, as 21 people died in the latest attack on civilians by unknown gunmen.

The civil war in the oil-producing country began when President Salva Kiir fired his deputy in 2013, two years after the country won independence from neighboring Sudan.

The fighting that followed split the country along ethnic lines, spurred hyperinflation and plunged parts of the nation into famine, creating Africa’s biggest refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

“No refugee crisis today worries me more than South Sudan,” Valentin Tapsoba, the Africa chief for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said in a statement.

In a country of 12 million people, nearly three in every four children do not go to school, UNHCR and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said. More than 1 million children have fled outside South Sudan while another 1 million are internally displaced.

The agencies said more than a thousand children have been killed in the fighting. The true figure may be much higher since there are no accurate death tolls available for South Sudan, one of the world’s least developed nations.

A displaced boy from South Sudan stands next to family belongings in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda

FILE PHOTO: A displaced boy from South Sudan stands next to family belongings in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda April 5, 2017. REUTERS/James Akena/File Photo

Separately, an official told Reuters that two commercial vehicles carrying passengers were attacked at two checkpoints along the Juba-Bor road on Friday.

“One commercial vehicle coming from Juba was attacked at a checkpoint in Jamaza and the other at Sudan Safari,” said Jacob Akech Deng, the Jonglei province’s state minister of information.

“We have received, and saw 21 people killed and 25 injured at Bor Hospital,” he told Reuters, referring to areas along the highway.

Reports in South Sudan said the death toll could reach to 51. Deng said authorities were still collecting evidence.

Many South Sudanese refugees have fled into neighboring Uganda, Kenya, Sudan or Ethiopia, nations which are already struggling to provide enough food and resources for their own populations.

(Writing by Clement Uwiringiyimana and Aaron Maasho; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Millions of Nigerians face hunger in wasteland recaptured from fighters

A family is pictured in their straw grass home at the IDP camp at Gamboru, Borno, Nigeria April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

By Alexis Akwagyiram

BANKI, Nigeria (Reuters) – When he heard that the Nigerian army had declared his family’s home town of Banki free from Boko Haram militants and safe to return, Bukar Abdulkadir did all he could to bring his family back to the place they had fled three years ago.

It took nine months of hunger, selling most of the food rations they received at their refugee camp in Cameroon, to save up for the cost of a two-day journey in a lorry container back across the border into northern Nigeria.

But instead of returning to till the familiar fields of home, they came back to a desolate wasteland littered with the rubble of destroyed buildings and burnt cars, where they were herded into a crowded camp by soldiers.

The once thriving town, which the army retook in September 2015, has been razed to the ground. Along with some 32,000 other homeless inhabitants, Abdulkadir’s family are now confined to the camp amid the ruins, guarded by troops who do not let them out unescorted, officially to protect them from explosives strewn across farmland.

“I can’t provide for my family because I can’t farm,” said Abdulkadir. “If the market opened I could do something to make their lives better,” he added in a voice cracking with emotion as he gazed at his children.

Nigeria’s security forces have succeeded in recapturing most of the territory once held by Boko Haram Islamist militants after years of an insurgency in which civilians were often the targets. But instead of bringing a joyous end to the conflict, the victories have revealed communities gripped by hunger.

Some 4.7 million people in northeast Nigeria depend on food aid, some of which is blocked by militant attacks, some held up by a lack of funding and some, diplomats say, stolen before it can reach those in need.

Millions of Nigerians may soon be in peril if the situation deteriorates, as authorities expect, when the five-month rainy season begins in May and makes farming impossible in areas that are now accessible.

This part of Nigeria is the western edge of an arc of hunger stretching across the breadth of Africa through South Sudan, Somalia and into Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. The United Nations believes as many as 20 million people are in danger in what could become the world’s worst famine for decades.

ALREADY BROKEN

“This camp is already broken,” said a field worker responsible for food distribution to children at the camp in Banki, asking not to be identified while he discussed the conditions endured by residents of the destroyed town.

Three hundred women and children were queuing for water in the scorching sun. Fatima Mallam, a widowed mother of three, said she had to wait five hours. The field worker said that was now normal for the camp. There are only 14 working boreholes to provide water for the 32,000 people.

“When the rainy season comes there is likely to be an outbreak of cholera and other diseases because people defecate in the open,” the worker said.

Lured by news of the army retaking territory lost to Boko Haram, some 152,000 people like Abdulkadir and his family have returned from neighboring Cameroon and Niger since the start of the year, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

But as Boko Haram continues to stage suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks, most end up in already stretched camps unable to resume farming, the main activity in the northeast.

Thousands of others are arriving in camps daily from parts of the northeast where the army, aided by troops from neighboring countries, has pushed the Islamist militants out of most of the territory they controlled until early 2015.

At another northeastern camp, in Gamboru-Ngala, army units were trying to accommodate a new influx of thousands.

“We only have four nurses and one medical doctor to cater for this number of people so it is not enough to deal with their medical challenges,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Omoke.

“There is no secondary health facility in the whole of Ngala local government,” he said. “A lot of people come in – shelter is a major challenge now.”

Aid agencies and military officials say the rainy season, beginning in the next few weeks, will make many roads impassable, increasing the dependence on food aid as farming halts and the movement of goods becomes restricted.

Cesar Tishilombo, who heads the sub-office of the U.N. refugee agency in Maiduguri, a state capital, said up to three million people were at risk of famine in areas recently recaptured from Boko Haram. Aid agencies working in Nigeria faced a funding crisis, he said.

“The pledge has been $1 billion plus. People have pledged but the promises are not translating into cash,” he said, adding that his agency had received just $11 million of the $70 million it had requested.

Western diplomats say corruption and government mismanagement are partly to blame for the failure of aid to reach those in need.

“Nobody knows who is in control,” said one diplomat, describing overlapping systems of authority at the local, state and federal levels that make it difficult to organize aid.

“There is corruption at every level, from drivers up to state and federal government,” said another diplomat, adding by way of example that 12 trucks might leave a depot with food aid and only two arrive at distribution centers to feed the hungry.

A spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari declined to comment on the assertions of corruption in aid deliveries, but the president has acknowledged that graft is a serious problem hindering recovery in areas recaptured from the militants.

Last month the authorities launched an investigation into allegations that funds allocated to contractors to help rebuild the insurgency-hit region had been misused. The presidency said the investigation was linked to another probe into $43 million in cash found in a flat in the commercial capital Lagos.

(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah and Paul Carsten in Abuja; editing by Peter Graff)

Veteran aid expert Egeland warns of ‘Biblical’ famine in Yemen

A family eat breakfast outside their hut at a camp for people displaced by the war near Sanaa, Yemen September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis.

Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports on which Yemen traditionally depends.

The United Nations conservatively estimates that more than 10,000 people have been killed, according to data from the health facilities that are still functioning. Experts fear the real figure is much higher.

Egeland, who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council and also advises the U.N. on Syrian humanitarian operations, told Reuters by telephone from the Yemeni capital Sanaa that although Yemen’s war was smaller than Syria’s, it had led to an epic disaster.

“All our efforts through the World Food Programme reached 3.1 million of 7 million people who are on the brink of famine. So it means basically that 4 million people got nothing in April and these people are staring into the naked eye of starvation.

“We will have a famine of Biblical proportions, if it continues like now with only a portion of those in greatest need getting humanitarian relief,” he told Reuters after visiting Sanaa, the port of Aden and the town of Amran.

Egeland, a former head of the U.N. humanitarian office, said the crisis was not getting the international attention it needed because few journalists or diplomats could get into the country.

“MAN-MADE CRISIS”

“I’m coming out of here angry with those men with power and guns, inside Yemen, in regional capitals and international capitals who are not able to fix this man-made crisis,” Egeland said. “It’s not rocket science.”

Half a million children could die at any time, and many are already doing so “quietly and tragically” in their homes, he added.

Egeland urged the United States and Britain to help stop the war. They are allies of Saudi Arabia, leader of the alliance seeking to restore the internationally recognized Aden-based government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In a separate statement, he also appealed to Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates to stop adding “fuel to this fire”. The Sunni Muslim Gulf Arabs see Shi’ite Iran, their arch foe, as bent on regional domination, something Tehran denies.

Egeland said all relevant countries should work toward securing a ceasefire and “meaningful peace talks” as well as the lifting of economic restrictions and sanctions that have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.

Last month a U.N. pledging conference for Yemen raised promises of $1.1 billion, about half of what is needed for the year. Without an immediate and massive injection of new cash, Egeland said, the aid flow will halt by July.

But the key to ending the humanitarian crisis is reviving the shattered, economy, as it is not possible to maintain a nation of 27 million people with aid injections, he said.

“When people have no income and the prices of food in the market have tripled, hungry people can only afford to look at the food in the market. They cannot afford to buy it,” Egeland said, adding that there were no food stocks left in Yemen.

“There are no reserves, there are no warehouses there like in many of the other wars I have visited. Everything goes straight into hungry mouths,” he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

UN seeks to avert famine in Yemen, where a child dies every 10 minutes

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres attends the High-level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations needs massive funds to avert famine in Yemen and warring parties there must ensure humanitarian aid can be delivered, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday as he opened a donor conference in Geneva.

A U.N. appeal for $2.1 billion this year for Yemen, where Guterres said a child under the age of five dies of preventable causes every 10 minutes, is only 15 percent covered.

Two years of conflict between Houthi rebels aligned with Iran and a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition that carries out air strikes almost daily have killed at least 10,000 people in Yemen, and hunger and disease are rife there.

Nearly 19 million people or two-thirds of the population need emergency aid, Guterres said, renewing a call for peace talks and urging all parties to “facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid by air, sea and land”.

“We are witnessing the starving and the crippling of an entire generation. We must act now to save lives,” he added.

“All infrastructure must remain open and operational.”

Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid Bin Daghr said his government, which controls only part of the country, would allow access for aid supplies. “We are ready to open new corridors for this aid,” he said.

Initial pledges announced at the conference included $150 million from Saudi Arabia, $100 million from Kuwait, 50 million euros ($54.39 million) from Germany and $94 million from the United States.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has committed $1 billion to Yemen and reached a record 5 million people last month with rations but needs to scale up deliveries to reach 9 million who are deemed “severely food insecure”, its regional director Muhannad Hadi said in an interview.

They include some 3 million malnourished children.

“REAL FAMINE THAT WILL SHAME US”

“If the international community does not move right now, and if WFP does not get the right funding and support to address all needs, I think the cost of that will be real famine that will shame us in coming months and weeks,” Hadi told Reuters.

Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, 70 percent of which passes through the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah. Concerns are growing about a possible attack by the Yemeni government and its Arab allies, who say the Houthis use it to smuggle weapons and ammunition.

“We are concerned about (all) facilities in Yemen because at this stage we can’t afford to even lose one bridge or one road network let alone to lose a major facility like Hodeidah port,” Hadi said.

“In order to achieve security in this region, we have to address the food security needs. It’s impossible to have security in the country while people are hungry,” he said.

The U.N. called on April 5 for safeguarding of the port, where five cranes have been destroyed by airstrikes, forcing ships to line up offshore because they cannot be unloaded.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien told the conference the United Nations and its humanitarian partners are scaling up and are prepared to do more, “provided there are resources and access”.

(This version of the story corrects figure in para 2 to $2.1 billion instead of $1.2 billion)

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

Four countries face famine threat as global food crisis deepens

Internally displaced Somali children eat boiled rice outside their family's makeshift shelter at the Al-cadaala camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

LONDON (Reuters) – Global food crises worsened significantly in 2016 and conditions look set to deteriorate further this year in some areas with an increasing risk of famine, a report said on Friday.

“There is a high risk of famine in some areas of north-eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen because of armed conflict, drought and macro-economic collapse,” the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) said.

FSIN, which is co-sponsored by the United Nations food agency, the World Food Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute, said the demand for humanitarian assistance was escalating.

FSIN said that 108 million people were reported to be facing crisis level food insecurity or worse in 2016, a drastic increase from the previous year’s total of almost 80 million.

The network uses a five phase scale with the third level classified as crisis, fourth as emergency and fifth as famine/catastrophe.

“In 2017, widespread food insecurity is likely to persist in Iraq, Syria (including among refugees in neighboring countries), Malawi and Zimbabwe,” the report said.

(Reporting by Nigel Hunt; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)