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Russia blocks U.N. Security Council condemnation of Syria attack

Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov delivers remarks at a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, U.S., April 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia blocked a Western-led effort at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to condemn last week’s deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident.

It was the eighth time during Syria’s six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assad’s government.

In the latest veto, Russia blocked a draft resolution backed by the United States, France and Britain to denounce the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and tell Assad’s government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans.

The toxic gas attack on April 4 prompted the United States to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the two countries under U.S. President Donald Trump.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed that comment after meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying that relations are at a low point with a low level of trust. Tillerson called for Assad to eventually relinquish power.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, called on Moscow to stop protecting Assad and said the United States wants to work with Russia toward a political solution for Syria.

“Russia once again has chosen to side with Assad, even as the rest of the world, including the Arab world, overwhelmingly comes together to condemn this murderous regime,” Haley told the 15-member Security Council.

“If the regime is innocent, as Russia claims, the information requested in this resolution would have vindicated them.”

Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, said the draft resolution laid blame prior to an independent investigation.

“I’m amazed that this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that?” he said.

He said the U.S. attack on the Syrian air base “was carried out in violation of international norms.”

ATTACK INVESTIGATION

Syria’s government has denied responsibility for the gas attack in a rebel-held area of northern Syria that killed at least 87 people, many of them children.

A fact-finding mission from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is investigating the attack.

If it determines that chemical weapons were used, then a joint U.N./OPCW investigation will look at the incident to determine who is to blame. This team has already found Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas.

China, which has vetoed six resolutions on Syria since the civil war began, abstained from Wednesday’s U.N. vote, along with Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. Ten countries voted in favor of the text, while Bolivia joined Russia in voting no.

U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking at an event in the White House, said he was not surprised by China’s abstention.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told the Security Council that samples taken from the site of the April 4 attack had been analyzed by British scientists and tested positive for the nerve gas sarin. He said Assad’s government was responsible.

Diplomats said that Russia has put forward a rival draft resolution that expresses concern at last week’s gas attack and condemns the U.S. strike on Syria. It was unclear if Moscow planned to put the text to a vote.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.N. votes to close, replace Haiti peacekeeping mission

U.N. peacekeepers walk along a street during a patrol with Haitian national police officers and members of UNPOL (United Nations Police) in the neighborhood of Cite Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 3, 2017. Picture taken March 3, 2017. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

By Rodrigo Campos

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to end its 13-year-long peacekeeping mission in Haiti and replace it with a smaller police, which would be drawn down after two years as the country boosts its own force.

The peacekeeping mission, one of the longest running in the world and known as MINUSTAH, has been dogged by controversies, including the introduction of cholera to the island and sexual abuse claims.

The 15-member Security Council acknowledged the completion of Haiti’s presidential election, along with the inauguration of its new president, as a “major milestone towards stabilization” in the Caribbean country.

“What we now need is a newly configured mission which is focused on the rule of law and human rights in Haiti,” British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said on his way into the meeting.

“Peacekeepers do fantastic work but they are very expensive and they should be used only when needed,” Rycroft said. “We strongly support the ending of this mission turning it into something else. And I think we’ll see the same thing elsewhere.”

The shutdown of the $346 million mission, recommended by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres, comes as the United States looks to cut its funding of U.N. peacekeeping. Washington is the largest contributor, paying 28.5 percent of the total budget.

There are 2,342 U.N. troops in Haiti, who will withdraw over the coming six months. The new mission will be established for an initial six months, from Oct. 16, 2017 to April 15, 2018, and is projected to exit two years after its establishment.

Lucien Jura, a spokesman for Haitian President Jovenel Moise, paid tribute to the U.N. mission.

“The U.N. has held our hands to help us through very difficult steps, but we cannot indefinitely depend on them for the country’s security and stability,” he said.

U.N. peacekeepers were deployed to Haiti in 2004 when a rebellion led to the ouster and exile of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It is the only U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Americas.

Haiti suffered a two-year political crisis until the recent election and inauguration of Moise as president. It has suffered major natural disasters, including an earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew last year. But the impoverished Caribbean country has not had an armed conflict in years.

U.N. peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse and blamed for the cholera outbreak. Haiti was free of cholera until 2010, when peacekeepers dumped infected sewage into a river.

The United Nations does not accept legal responsibility for the outbreak of the disease, which causes uncontrollable diarrhea. Some 9,300 people have died and more than 800,000 sickened due to cholera and Haiti’s government believes the United Nations still has work to do on it.

“The U.N. promised to help eradicate the disease in the country and assist families who lost their loved ones. We expect the U.N. to fulfill its commitments,” said Moise spokesman Jura.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)

U.S. to hold accountable those who commit crimes against ‘innocents’

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, (C) talks to reporters during a ceremony at the Sant'Anna di Stazzema memorial, dedicated to the victims of the massacre committed in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema by the Nazis in 1944 during World War II, Italy

y Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer

LUCCA, Italy (Reuters) – The United States will hold responsible anyone who commits crimes against humanity, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday, days after the U.S. military unexpectedly attacked Syria.

Tillerson is in Italy for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized nations, with his counterparts from Europe and Japan eager for clarity from Washington on numerous diplomatic issues, especially Syria.

Before the April 7 missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, U.S. President Donald Trump had indicated he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and willing to overlook human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests.

But Tillerson said the United States would not let such crimes go unchallenged. “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” he told reporters while commemorating a 1944 German Nazi massacre in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

Trump ordered his military to strike Syria in retaliation for what the United States said was a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces which killed scores of civilians, including many children.

European ministers are eager to hear whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Assad, who is backed by Russia. They also want the United States to put pressure on Moscow to distance itself from Assad.

Tillerson, who travels to Russia after the two-day G7 gathering, said at the weekend that the defeat of Islamic State remained the U.S. priority, while the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that “regime change” in Syria was also a priority for Trump.

The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full U.S. support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus.

“The Americans say they agree, but there’s nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark,” said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named.

Italy, Germany, France and Britain have invited foreign ministers from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar to sit down with the G7 group on Tuesday morning to discuss Syria. All oppose Assad’s rule.

SENSITIVE ISSUES

The foreign ministers’ discussions in Tuscany will prepare the way for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

Efforts to reach an agreement on statements ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy – have moved very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the U.S. state department, where many key positions remain unfilled.

Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked this week. “The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders,” said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

However, the foreign ministers will talk about growing tensions with North Korea, as the United States moves a navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

They will also discuss Libya. Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli which has struggled to establish its authority even in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country.

The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt and Russia, which support general Khalifa Haftar, a powerful figure in eastern Libya.

The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (10.30 a.m. ET) on Monday.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer; editing by Andrew Roche)

Russia calls for emergency U.N. meeting after U.S. strikes on Syria

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia wants an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss U.S. missile strikes on Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday, describing the action as “thoughtless”.

The ministry said in a statement that Russia was also suspending a Syrian air safety agreement with the United States, saying:

“This is not the first time the United States has resorted to such a thoughtless step, which merely exacerbates existing problems and threatens global security.”

Russia has dismissed Western accusations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Washington says was responsible for a chemical gas attack that left scores dead in the Syrian province of Idlib.

The foreign ministry said it was clear that the U.S. missile strikes were prepared before the Idlib incident.

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Writing by Sujata Rao; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Britain, France renew call for Assad to go after Syria chemical attack

Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and officials observe a minute of silence in respect for the victims of suspected Syrian government chemical attack during an international conference on the future of Syria and the region, in Brussels, Belgium, April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Gabriela Baczynska and Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain and France on Wednesday renewed their call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go, after a suspected chemical weapons attack by Damascus killed scores of people in a rebel-held area.

Foreign ministers Boris Johnson of Britain and Jean-Marc Ayrault of France spoke during an international conference on Syria, which the European Union convened in Brussels in a bid to shore up stalled peace talks between Assad and his rivals.

“This is a barbaric regime that has made it impossible for us to imagine them continuing to be an authority over the people of Syria after this conflict is over,” Johnson said.

Ayrault said the attack was a test for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The future of Assad, who is backed militarily and politically by Russia and Iran, has been the main point of contention blocking progress in talks. The war has raged for more than six years, killing 320,000 people, displacing millions and leaving civilians facing dire humanitarian conditions.

“The need for humanitarian aid and the protection of Syrian civilians has never been greater. The humanitarian appeal for a single crisis has never been higher,” United Nations’ Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

The U.N. has called for $8 billion this year to deal with the crisis and the Brussels gathering was due to come up with fresh pledges of aid.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Hours before the U.N. Security Council meets over a resolution proposed by Washington, London and Paris on the attack, Guterres said: “We have been asking for accountability on the crimes that have been committed and I am confident the Security Council will live up to its responsibilities.”

The three countries blamed Assad for the attack. Russia said it believed the toxic gas had leaked from a rebel chemical weapons depot struck by Syrian bombs, setting the stage for a diplomatic collision at the Security Council.

In condemning Assad, Trump did not say how he would respond. The attack came a week after Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. envoy Nikki Haley said their focus was on defeating Islamic State in Syria rather than pushing Assad out.

“Under Obama, we agreed that Assad had to go, but now it is unclear where the Trump position lies,” said a senior EU diplomat.

On the aid front, Germany pledged 1.2 billion euros ($1.28 billion) for 2017 on top of its previous commitments. London offered an additional one billion pounds ($1.25 billion).

The EU and its members have so far mobilized about 9.5 billion euros in Syria emergency humanitarian aid, Brussels says.

The bloc says it will withhold development aid and not pay for any reconstruction if Damascus and its backers wipe out Syria’s opposition and moderate rebels, regaining full control of the country but denying its ethnic and religious groups political representation.

“But behind this line, there are divisions in the EU on Assad. Some are hawkish, some others want to think whether we could work with him somehow,” another senior EU diplomat said.

“The EU’s internal splits only add up to those among the big players in this war. There is a sense of despair but the international community just cannot agree on how to fix Syria.”

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, John Irish in Paris, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Death around corner for civilians living on Mosul’s frontline

Abdelraziq Abdelkarim sits on a wheelchair as he enjoys the afternoon next to frontline positions of Iraqi Federal Police fighting the Islamic State in Mosul,

By Ulf Laessing

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, pensioner Abdelraziq Abdelkarim enjoys the afternoon sun outside his house in Mosul after a day of rain. He does not flinch when a mortar opens fire just around the corner.

His home is on the busiest frontline in the northern Iraqi city just 200 m (yards) from Islamic State positions. Outside his house, Federal Police units are firing at the militants.

Government forces have been evacuating civilians as they fight to seize Mosul, once the hardline Sunni militant group’s main urban stronghold in Iraq and now the scene of a six-month-old battle.

But some families refuse to go, shrugging off the danger of a mortar fired two blocks away or a counter-attack from the militants who move around at night. Gunfire rings out constantly between Federal Police and militants holed up in abandoned shops and apartments.

“I don’t want to go. I’ve lived all my life in this house,” said 72-year Abdelkarim, a former studio photographer, sitting next to his handicapped son and a grandchild.

They share a two-floor house in a narrow street with five people from two other families. Military Humvees and mortar launchers are just parked outside.

Almost 300,000 people have fled Mosul since the government offensive to recapture the city began in October, according to the United Nations.

Displaced Iraqis who had fled their homes wait to get food supplies before entering at Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

But Abdelkarim and his friends dread going to one of the crowded camps where aid agencies sometimes place two families in one tent for lack of space. Others stay with relatives in cramped homes.

They had stocked up food, water and petrol for a power generator when the military campaign began. There is no food store at the frontline but soldiers sometimes share rations or a family member goes to one of the food distribution centers set up by the military, they say.

“We are maybe three or four families left. The rest are gone,” said Abdullah Ahmed, a 42-year old engineer staying with Abdelkarim. “Right across out door 50 people stayed in one house but they’ve fled.”

DEATH AROUND CORNER

Their short alley shows the military’s challenges in dislodging Islamic State fighters hiding in the Old City — navigating is difficult in the labyrinth of narrow, often covered alleys offering perfect hideouts for snipers or to stage ambushes.

U.S. officials estimated about 2,000 fighters were still in Mosul in February at the start of the second phase of the campaign, to dislodge them from western sector.

Iraqi forces have been edging closer to al-Nuri Mosque — some 300 meters away — where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate nearly three years ago across territory controlled by the group in both Iraq and Syria.

But the front has hardly moved in past two weeks as Humvees or tanks are of no use in the Old City.

“See our street is about one-and-half meters wide,” said Ahmed, whose TV satellite shop was closed by Islamic State as watching TV channels was banned under its austere version of Sunni Islam.

“Near the mosque the streets only half as wide as this. There are some 40 to 50 small houses clustered around it,” he said, pointing in the direction of the mosque. “It’s very difficult to move there.”

When Federal Police opened fire with a machine gun perched on the top floor of a house through a hole broken into a wall, Islamic State fired back within two minutes with accuracy.

“There are snipers here,” a federal policeman said.

There is another reason why the friends want to avoid going to camps. IS fighters seized the husband of one of their sisters two before the government forces arrived.

“I fear they killed him because he was a policeman,” said his 30-year-old wife Dhikrayat Muwafiq, weeping in the kitchen where she was preparing rice and beans.

“I don’t want to go until we know where he is. I need to stay,” she said.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.N. chief alarmed by Israel’s approval of new settlement

U.N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres attends the 34th session of the Human Rights Council at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is disappointed and alarmed by Israel’s decision to build a new settlement on land the Palestinians seek for a state and has condemned the move, his spokesman said on Friday.

Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb of settlement activity.

“He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

The White House appeared more accommodating to Israel’s plans for the new settlement, intended for some 40 families evicted from Amona, a West Bank outpost razed in February because it was built on private Palestinian land.

A White House official noted Netanyahu had made a commitment to the Amona settlers before U.S. President Donald Trump and the Israeli leader agreed to work on limiting settlement activity.

Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic toward settlements, appeared to surprise Netanyahu during a White House visit last month, when he urged him to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

The two then agreed that their aides would try to work out a compromise on how much Israel can build and where.

“The Israeli government has made clear that Israel’s intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump’s concerns into consideration,” a written statement from the official said.

Following Thursday’s announcement, Israeli officials said Netanyahu’s security cabinet decided out of respect for Trump’s peace efforts to limit construction in settlements to existing, built-up areas and not to expand beyond present boundaries.

The White House was informed in advance about the planned announcement of a new settlement as well as the Israeli policy shift and raised no objections, a person close to the matter said, signaling possible coordination between the two governments.

U.S. and Israeli officials completed a round of talks on the settlements last week without agreement, saying the discussions were ongoing, and the two sides have yet to announce any final understanding on the issue.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, this week wrapped up a second trip to the region aimed at reviving peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Most countries view Israeli settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing biblical and historical ties to the land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as security concerns.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in December that demanded a halt to settlement building, after the Obama administration decided to abstain from the vote instead of vetoing the moving.

Sweden’s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog, a member of the Security Council, said on Friday that the 15-member Security Council should respond to the latest announcement by Israel on settlements.

“The urgency of the situation and the deterioration on the ground might call for some sort of Security Council action, although we know that finding unity on this is not easy,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Called ‘dictator’, Venezuela leader tries to defuse court protests

Opposition supporters shout slogans as they block a highway during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Girish Gupta and Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS (Reuters) – Seeking to cool protests and international outrage, Venezuela’s socialist president said on Saturday the Supreme Court would review its move to annul the opposition-led congress, which critics decried as a lurch toward dictatorship.

“This controversy is over … the constitution has won,” Maduro said in a televised speech just after midnight.

He was flanked by senior officials on a specially-convened state security committee which ordered the top court to reconsider its rulings.

While Maduro, 54, sought to cast the move as the achievement of a statesman resolving a power conflict, his foes said it was a row-back by an unpopular government that overplayed its hand.

“You can’t pretend to just normalize the nation after carrying out a ‘coup’,” Julio Borges, leader of the National Assembly legislature, said. He publicly tore up the court rulings this week and refused to attend the security committee, which includes the heads of major institutions.

Having already shot down most congress measures since the opposition won control in 2015, the pro-Maduro Supreme Court went further on Wednesday with a ruling it was taking over the legislature’s functions because it was in “contempt” of the law.

That galvanized Venezuela’s demoralized and divided opposition coalition and brought a torrent of international condemnation and concern ranging from the United Nations and European Union to most major Latin American countries.

The decision to review the Supreme Court’s move – and presumably revoke the controversial ruling – may take the edge off protests, but Maduro’s opponents at home and abroad will seek to maintain the pressure.

They are furious that authorities thwarted a push for a referendum to recall Maduro last year and also postponed local elections scheduled for 2016.

Now they are calling for next year’s presidential election to be brought forward and the delayed local polls to be held, confident the ruling Socialist Party would lose.

“It’s time to mobilize!” student David Pernia, 29, said in western San Cristobal city, adding Venezuelans were fed up with autocratic rule and economic hardship. “Women don’t have food for their children, people don’t have medicines.”

FOREIGN PRESSURE

On Saturday, the National Assembly planned an open-air meeting in Caracas, while South America’s UNASUR bloc was to meet in Argentina with most of its members unhappy at Venezuela.

The hemispheric Organization of American States (OAS) had a special session slated for Monday in Washington.

Even before this week’s events, OAS head Luis Almagro had been pushing for Venezuela’s suspension, but he is unlikely to garner the two-thirds support needed in the 34-nation block despite hardening sentiment toward Maduro round the region.

Venezuela can still count on support from fellow leftist allies and other small nations grateful for subsidized oil dating from the 1999-2013 rule of late leader Hugo Chavez.

Maduro accuses the United States of orchestrating a campaign to oust him and said he had been subject this week to a “political, media and diplomatic lynching.”

Some criticism even came from within government, with Venezuela’s attorney general Luisa Ortega rebuking the court in an extremely rare show of dissent from a senior official.

“It constitutes a rupture of the constitutional order,” the 59-year-old said in a speech on state television on Friday.

Pockets of protesters had blocked roads, chanted slogans and waved banners saying “No To Dictatorship” around Venezuela on Friday, leading to some clashes with security forces.

Given past failures of opposition street protests, however, it is unlikely there will be mass support for a new wave. Rather, the opposition will be hoping ramped-up foreign pressure or a nudge from the powerful military may force Maduro into calling an early election.

He will be hoping to have ridden this week’s storm, and indeed there is no immediate threat to his grip on power.

The former bus driver, foreign minister and self-declared “son” of Chavez, was narrowly elected president in 2013.

But his ratings have plummeted as Venezuelans struggle with an unprecedented economic crisis including food and medicine shortages plus the world’s highest inflation.

Critics blame a failing socialist system, whereas the government says its enemies are waging an “economic war”. The fall in oil prices since mid-2014 has exacerbated the crisis.

The Supreme Court’s move this week may have been partly motivated by financial reasons. The wording about taking over Assembly functions came in a ruling allowing Maduro to create joint oil ventures without congress’ approval.

That may have its genesis in the urgent need to raise money from oil partners to pay $3 billion in bond maturities due this month, analysts and sources say.

The government, though, was probably also seeking to further disempower the opposition as it made headroads turning international opinion against Maduro.

During Chavez’s rule, the socialists were proud of their electoral legitimacy after winning votes over-and-over, so the increased questioning of their democratic credentials now stings and they have sought to stop some opposition leaders traveling.

(Additional reporting by Diego Ore, Eyanir Chinea and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas; Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal; editing by Alexander Smith)

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)

U.N. Secretary General calls for more aid as people flee Mosul

Displaced Iraqi sit outside their tent during the visit of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at Hasansham camp, in Khazer, Iraq March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Isabel Coles and Maher Chmaytelli

HASSAN SHAM CAMP/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on world powers to increase aid to help people fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul which government forces have been battling to retake from Islamic State.

Iraqi forces have seized back most of the country’s second-largest city from the Sunni hardline group in a massive six-month campaign.

But at least 355,000 residents have fled fighting, according to the government, and some 400,000 civilians remain trapped inside the densely-populated Old City where street battles have raged for weeks.

“We don’t have the resources necessary to support these people,” Guterres told reporters during a visit to the Hassan Sham Camp, one of several centers outside Mosul packed with civilians escaping the fighting.

The U.N. and Iraqi authorities have been building more camps but struggle to accommodate new arrivals with two families sometimes having to share one tent.

“Unfortunately our program is only 8 percent funded,” he said, referring to a 2017 U.N. humanitarian response program without giving additional details.

During his visit, which lasted about half an hour, residents complained to Guterres about the quality of drinking water and poor living conditions in tents frequented by mice and insects.

“We want to go back to our villages. We are fed up,” said Saqr Younis, who fled to Mosul when Islamic State arrived in his village in 2014.

“If we had died by bombardment it would have been more merciful,” said Saqr who has been in the camp for four months.

Many of the displaced have returned to their homes in areas retaken from Islamic State but some, like Saqr, have not yet been allowed to return by the authorities.

The Sunni group overran about a third of Iraq in 2014, benefiting from the Sunni-Shi’ite rift that weakened the army.

Iraqi forces have won back control of most cities that fell to the group and the militants have been dislodged from nearly three quarters of Mosul but remain in control of its center.

On Friday, Islamic State fired at least 18 rockets from western Mosul into the eastern part which Iraqi force have retaken, the city’s police chief Brigadier General Wathiq al-Hamdani told Reuters.

Machine gunfire and mortars could be heard in the area of the old city but like in previous days there was no new push by government forces.

State television said the air force bombed an Islamic State position in Baaj, some 130 km west of Mosul near the Syrian border.

Government positions have reached as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city but U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city, resisting with snipers hiding among the population, car bombs and suicide trucks targeting Iraqi positions.

(additional reporting by Alaa Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Julia Glover)

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