Refugees from Equator province, November 2009, when number reached 100,000 http://www.flickr.com/photos/unhcr/4271338608/ (photo: BB Diallo/UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several United Nations offices appealed Tuesday morning 9 March in Geneva for an urgent infusion of aid money to meet the needs of 110,000 refugees in northern Republic of Congo’s Likouala province. Eighty-two percent are women and children who fled fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur Province. UNHCR is asking for $20 million.
The request is part of a broader appeal by UN agencies, who say they have received only $17.3 million of the nearly $59 million the need for refugees from the Equator region in the country in 2010. Partners in the appeal are: the World Food Programme, Unicef, the World Health Organization, Unesco, the UN Development Programme, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the UNFPA.
The refugees fled from Equator province in late October 2009 “when Enyele militiamen launched deadly assaults on ethnic Munzayas over fishing and farming rights in the Dongo area,” the UNHCR says.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is suspending operations in southern Somalia, it announced Wednesday 6 January, saying that a spate of attacks have made it too dangerous to work there. More than one million people in the region are going hungry, according to the WFP. Reuters NewsAlert says that children are likely to be hurt the most by the suspension, with a sharp increase in malnutrition to be expected. The news is yet another blow to the region, where humanitarian agencies have found it increasingly hard, they say, to continue their work and where years of drought have been exacerbated because expected rains never arrived in November.
Links to other sites: ENS News Service, Reuters AlertNet, UN World Food Programme
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The United States heads into the Cartagena Summit, which opens Sunday 29 November in Colombia, now saying that it is continuing to review its policy on signing the international Mine Ban treaty. The US is sending a sizeable official observer team to the summit, with groups from the State Department, Pentagon, US Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Cartagena Summit is the second review of the 1997 Ottawa Convention that bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines. More than 1,000 delegates, including several heads of state, will participate in the summit, which will assess progress made in clearing the world of landmines.
Cause of US shift unexplained
The US said in a statement issued Wednesday 25 November that it is still reviewing its position on signing the 10-year-old Mine Ban treaty – the opposite of what it said the previous day, but it was unclear if the statement was a correction of an error, a change in tactics ahead of the Cartagena Summit that opens 29 November in Colombia, or a change of heart following harsh criticism.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland is giving CHF450,000 to the Philippines Red Cross as emergency money to help victims of the floods provoked by tropical storm Ketsana, Bern announced late Thursday 1 October. It is also sending two experts from the Humanitarian Aid corps to help assess needs.
International humanitarian groups launched a new appeal for donor funds for Zimbabwe under the umbrella Cap (Consolidated Appeals Process), asking for a 30 percent increase in aid to get the country back on its feet. Cap is a short-term humanitarian financing tool which is combined with other funding but the launch of the new appeal 1 June is unusual in that it goes beyond emergency funding to providing recovery aid, in recognition of progress made by the Inclusive Government formed in February 2009 by the two main parties.
Zimbabwe is still deep in crisis, with AllAfrica (UN Irin) noting that in March, when an initial appeal had reached $719 million for basic aid, “Six million people had limited or no access to safe water and sanitation; 1.5 million children required support to access education; 800,000 people were in need of food aid, and 44,000 children younger than five years needed treatment for severe acute malnutrition.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland will give CHF27 million in aid to Ghana, which it cites as an exemplary sub-Saharan African country in terms of political and economic development.
