famine - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Donors raise more than 2 billion euros for Sudan aid a year into war

DONORS pledged more than 2 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for war-torn Sudan at a conference in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said, on the first anniversary of what aid workers describe as a neglected but devastating conflict. Efforts to help millions of people driven to the verge of famine by the war have been held up by continued fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), restrictions imposed by the warring sides, and demands on donors from other global crises including in Gaza and Ukraine. Conflict in Sudan is threatening to expand, with fighting heating up in and around al-Fashir, a…

Mar

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

UN Security Council demands ceasefire amid Israeli airstrikes

WORLD

THE United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas as Israeli forces carried out new airstrikes in Gaza and laid siege to two hospitals. After vetoing three earlier draft council resolutions on the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel's main ally, the United States, abstained in the vote following global pressure for a ceasefire to ease fears of famine after nearly six months of war. Hamas welcomed the resolution, which also demanded the unconditional release of all hostages seized by the militant group in its deadly October 7 raid on southern Israel.…

Mar

2024

By AIDAN LEWIS

US pushes peace talks to avert ‘point of no return’ in Sudan

NEWS

The United States hopes for a relaunch of talks aimed at ending the conflict in Sudan and opening up humanitarian access soon after Ramadan ends in mid-April, Washington's newly appointed envoy said on Thursday. Saudi Arabia and the United States led talks in Jeddah last year to try to reach a truce between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but the negotiations faltered amid competing international peace initiatives. "We need to restart formal talks. We hope that will happen as soon as Ramadan is over," Tom Perriello, who took up his role as U.S. special envoy to…

Mar

2024

By MOHAMMAD SALEM and GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER

In Gaza, starving children fill hospital wards as famine looms

WORLD

SIX-YEAR-OLD Fadi al-Zant is acutely malnourished, his ribs protruding under leathery skin, his eyes sunken as he lays in bed at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where famine is bearing down. Fadi's spindly legs can no longer support him enough to walk. Photographs of Fadi from before the war show a smiling, healthy-looking child, standing in blue denims next to his taller twin with his hair brushed. A short video clip shows him dancing at a wedding with a little girl. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Fadi al-Zant in family photos. Fadi suffers from cystic fibrosis. Before the…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

U.N. agency in Gaza says one in three children under 2 is acutely malnourished

WORLD

ONE in three children under age 2 in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished and famine is looming, the main U.N. agency operating in the Palestinian enclave said on Saturday. "Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza," the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a social media post. More than five months into Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' attack on October 7, much of the enclave is in ruins with most of its 2.3 million population displaced and facing a major humanitarian crisis. Hospitals in Gaza…

Feb

2024

By GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER

UN says war-torn Sudan must not be forgotten, calls for aid funding

NEWS

THE United Nations urged countries not to forget the civilians caught up in the war in Sudan, appealing for $4.1 billion to meet their humanitarian needs and support those who have fled to neighbouring countries. A ten-month war in Sudan between its armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the country's infrastructure, prompted warnings of famine and displaced millions of people inside and outside the country. Half of Sudan's population - around 25 million people - need humanitarian assistance and protection, while more than 1.5 million people have fled to the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan,…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Somalis suffering from climate crisis they did nothing to create, U.N. chief says

NEWS

SOMALIA is suffering from the impact of a climate crisis it has done almost nothing to create, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday, as a full-blown famine threatens to follow a drought that killed 43,000 people last year. Some 8.3 million Somalis, almost half the population, require urgent humanitarian assistance, Guterres said, adding that only 15% of the country's $2.6 billion aid requirement for this year has been met. "When famine looms, this is totally unacceptable," Guterres told reporters in Mogadishu. He was speaking after visiting a camp in Baidoa, southwest Somalia, for people displaced by the drought…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

U.N. aid chief to Ethiopia on famine in Tigray: ‘Get those trucks moving’

NEWS

MCHELLE NICHOLS UNITED Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths has assumed famine has taken hold in Ethiopia's Tigray where a nearly three-month-long "de-facto blockade" has restricted aid deliveries to 10% of what is needed in the war-torn region. Griffiths told Reuters during an interview that his request was simple: "Get those trucks moving." "This is man-made, this can be remedied by the act of government," he said. War broke out 10 months ago between Ethiopia's federal troops and forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls Tigray. Thousands have died and more than two million people have been…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Catastrophe looms in Ethiopia – UN

NEWS

A de facto blockade on aid to the Tigray region in Ethiopia's north is bringing millions of people to the brink of famine, the United Nations humanitarian agency has said, warning of "looming catastrophe". The U.N. agency OCHA called on all parties in a 10-month-old war in Tigray to allow the movement of aid into the region where it said 5.2 million people, or 90% of the population, urgently need humanitarian assistance. Those include 400,000 people who are already facing famine conditions, it said. War broke out in November between Ethiopia's federal troops and forces loyal to the Tigray People's…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia says aid flights to Tigray allowed, but none has yet left the capital

NEWS

ETHIOPIA has allowed humanitarian flights to its northern Tigray region, amid concerns that aid is not reaching people facing famine, but the civil aviation head said no such flights had yet left the capital. Ethiopia's government has been battling the Tigray People's Liberation Front since November and thousands of civilians and an unknown number of combatants have since been killed. Last week, government forces said they had withdrawn from the Tigray capital of Mekelle, but the TPLF said its forces seized the city, a major shift in the conflict. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire and…