Tag Archives: humanitarian assistance

Number of U.S. diplomats doubled in Syria as Islamic State nears defeat: Mattis

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis attends a news conference with French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly (not pictured) at the Defence Ministry in Paris, France, October 2, 2018. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

By Idrees Ali

PARIS (Reuters) – The number of U.S. diplomats in Syria has doubled as Islamic State fighters near a military defeat, U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis said on Tuesday.

The U.S.-led coalition, along with local partners, has largely cleared the militant group from Iraq and Syria but remains concerned about its resurgence.

“Our diplomats there on the ground have been doubled in number. As we see the military operations becoming less, we will see the diplomatic effort now able to take (root)” Mattis said.

He did not give a specific number.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mattis was referring to State Department employees, including diplomats and personnel involved in humanitarian assistance, and the increase was recent.

The United States does not have an embassy in Syria.

In a sign of the threat still posed by the militant group, security forces in northern Syria’s Raqqa said on Sunday they had uncovered an Islamic State sleeper cell which was plotting large attacks across the devastated city.

Raqqa served as the de facto capital of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate until it was retaken by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia alliance last October.

In June, the SDF imposed a three-day curfew in Raqqa and declared a state of emergency, saying Islamic State militants had infiltrated the city and were planning a bombing campaign.

“We are still in a tough fight, make no mistake about it,” Mattis said.

He said troops would work after the defeat of Islamic State to ensure that the militant group did not return.

Russia has held the balance of power in Syria, both on the battlefield and in the U.N.-led peace talks, for the past two years. It has helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover huge amounts of lost territory without persuading him to agree to any political reforms.

But nine rounds of talks, most of them in Geneva, have failed to bring the warring sides together to end a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

The United States has said it will pursue “a strategy of isolation”, including sanctions, with its allies if Assad holds up a political process aimed at ending Syria’s seven-year-old war.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Yemen’s cholera epidemic likely to intensify in coming months: WHO

FILE PHOTO: A nurse walks by women being treated at a cholera treatment center in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen October 8, 2017. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

RIYADH (Reuters) – The World Health Organization warned on Monday that a cholera epidemic in Yemen that killed more than 2,000 people could flare up again in the rainy season.

WHO Deputy Director General for Emergency Preparedness and Response Peter Salama said the number of cholera infections had been in decline in Yemen over the past 20 weeks after it hit the 1 million mark of suspected cases.

“However, the real problem is we’re entering another phase of rainy seasons,” Salama told Reuters on the sidelines of an international aid conference in Riyadh.

“Usually cholera cases increase corresponding to those rainy seasons. So we expect one surge in April, and another potential surge in August.”

A proxy war between Iran-aligned Houthis and the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led alliance, has killed more than 10,000 people since 2015, displaced more than 2 million and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, including the health system.

Yemen relies heavily on food imports and is on the brink of famine. The United Nations says more than 22 million of Yemen’s 25 million population need humanitarian assistance, including 11.3 million who are in acute need.

Salama said the country had also had an outbreak of diphtheria, a vaccine-preventable disease that usually affects children and which has largely been eliminated in developed countries.

Both cholera and diphtheria outbreaks are a product of the damage to the health system in the country, he said, adding that less than half of Yemen’s health facilities are fully functioning.

“We’re very concerned we’re going to go from a failing health system to a failed one that’s going to spawn more infectious diseases and more suffering,” Salama said.

However, Salama said that despite more than 2,000 deaths from cholera, the fatality rate has been low, at around 0.2 to 0.3 percent.

The WHO has approval from the government for vaccination campaigns and is working on ensuring all parties to the conflict implement the plan, he added.

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Alison Williams)

First U.N. global aid summit falls short as crisis mounts

Houses are seen partially submerged in floodwaters in Asuncion

By Dasha Afanasieva

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A global summit called by the UN secretary general next week to address failings in humanitarian aid provision risks falling short of its ambitions, boycotted by a big aid agency and snubbed by Russia’s president.

Government and business leaders, aid groups and donors gather in Istanbul for the two-day summit on Monday to try to develop a more coherent response to what UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called the worst global humanitarian situation since World War Two.

The United Nations estimates that more than 130 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and that less than 20 percent of the $20 billion needed to fund that is covered.

The summit – billed as the first of its kind bringing together governments, civil society and the private sector – aims to mobilize funds and get world leaders to agree on issues ranging from how to manage displaced civilians to renewing commitments to international humanitarian law.

But branding it a “fig-leaf of good intentions”, Medecins sans Frontieres – involved in the planning over the past 18 months – pulled out in early May, saying it had lost hope that the meetings could address weaknesses in emergency response.

It said it could not see how the summit could help address the needs of patients and medical staff facing violence in Syria, Yemen and South Sudan, displaced civilians blocked at borders in Jordan, Turkey and Macedonia, or refugees and migrants trying to settle in Greece and Australia.

Seventy-five hospitals managed or supported by MSF were bombed around the world last year, in what the agency said were violations of the most fundamental rules of war.

Some 6,000 participants from 150 UN member states are expected to take part in the Istanbul talks, according to summit spokesman Herve Verhoosel, including 57 heads of state or government.

“In the context of this very broad and wide coalition, it is very unlikely that you could come down to very precise commitments,” said Ivan Zerzhanovski, a co-ordinator at the United Nations Development Programme in Istanbul.

But he said the purpose of the summit was to “set the stage for change” and provide a framework for concrete measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the only G7 leader so far publicly confirmed as planning to attend.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be there. Moscow will instead send its deputy minister for emergencies, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, adding Russia had serious concerns about the summit and had told U.N. member states it would not be bound by its commitments.

“Russia has on numerous occasions presented its proposals and remarks to the organizers of the summit. However they were simply ignored,” she told a weekly briefing. Among other issues, Moscow was concerned about a plan to limit the veto powers of Security Council members in certain situations, Zakharova said.

MSF said the non-binding nature of commitments at the summit would in any case mean states could not be held accountable. Russia and the Syrian government, which is backed by Moscow, stand accused of widespread rights violations in Syria’s war including attacks on medical facilities, which Moscow denies.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul, Louis Charbonneau in New York and Lidia Kelly and Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Nick Tattersall)