humanitarian aid - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Only effective way to ramp up Gaza aid is by road, Guterres says

THE only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza's humanitarian needs is by road and includes an exponential increase in commercial deliveries, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. Speaking after meeting Egypt's president and foreign minister in Cairo, Guterres also warned of the impact the war in Gaza was having around the globe. "The daily assault on the human dignity of Palestinians is creating a crisis of credibility for the international community," he said. Guterres is visiting Egypt and Jordan as part of an annual Ramadan solidarity tour to Muslim countries and travelled on Saturday to Egypt's…

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 The African Mirror

Army ban on cross-border aid endangers lives in Darfur, say activists

NEWS

MILLIONS of people in Sudan's Darfur region are at risk of dying of hunger after a decision by the Sudanese government to prohibit aid deliveries through Chad, an advocacy group for internally displaced people said. The order, a digital copy of which Reuters has obtained, effectively shuts down a crucial route for supplies to the vast Darfur region, controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the army's rivals in a 10-month civil war. "The failure to receive urgent humanitarian aid puts millions of displaced people in Darfur at risk of death from hunger, which makes denying food and relief to…

Nov

2023

By YOSRI ALJAMAL

Palestinian ex-prisoner hopes his son will also be freed in Israel swap

WORLD

FOR Yusif Abu Maria, the looming Gaza hostage deal is especially personal. Not only is his son on a list of candidates of imprisoned Palestinians to be freed by Israel: But it would be a replay of Abu Maria's own release from jail almost 20 years ago. The Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated agreement approved by Israel in the early hours of Wednesday will pause the war between Israel and Hamas militants for a few days, enabling the entry of more humanitarian aid to the ravaged Gaza Strip. In the lull, Hamas will free 50 children and women who were among some 240 people…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

U.S., Israel and Hamas reach tentative deal to pause conflict and free dozens of hostages

WORLD

ISRAEL, the United States and Hamas have reached a tentative agreement to free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting, the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the deal. As part of the detailed, six-page agreement, all parties would freeze combat operations for at least five days while "an initial 50 or more hostages are released in smaller groups every 24 hours", the Post reported. Hamas took about 240 hostages during its October 7 rampage inside Israel that killed 1,200 people. The newspaper said overhead surveillance would monitor ground…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Egypt pushes to break impasse over Gaza aid

NEWS

EGYPT said that it had stepped up diplomatic efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and its president told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel's bombardment of the territory was disproportional. "The reaction went beyond the right to self-defence, turning into collective punishment for 2.3 million people in Gaza," President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said of Israel's retaliatory strikes for Hamas militants' attacks a week ago. Aid from several countries has been building up in Egypt's Sinai peninsula due to a failure to reach a deal enabling its safe delivery to Gaza along with evacuations of some foreign…

Oct

2023

By AHMED MOHAMED HASSAN

Egypt discusses Gaza aid, rejects corridors for civilians, say sources

NEWS

EGYPT has discussed plans with the United States and others to provide humanitarian aid through its border with Gaza Strip but rejects any move to set up safe corridors for refugees fleeing the enclave, Egyptian security sources said. Gaza, a tiny coastal strip of land wedged between Israel in the north and east and Egypt to the southwest, is home to some 2.3 million people who have been living under a blockade since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas took control there in 2007. Egypt has long restricted the flow of Gazans on to its territory, even during the fiercest conflicts. Cairo,…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Ethiopian and Tigray forces launch hotline as new peace talks begin

NEWS

HEREWARD HOLLAND and TOMMY WILKES THE Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces have established a telephone hotline to help maintain a ceasefire struck last week, and both sides met in Kenya for a new round of talks on implementing the truce. Ethiopia's government and regional forces from Tigray agreed last Wednesday to cease hostilities after talks mediated by the African Union (AU), a diplomatic breakthrough two years into a war that has killed thousands and displaced millions. The truce has raised hopes humanitarian aid can start moving back into a region where hundreds of thousands face famine. Representatives of Ethiopia's military and government and forces…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

How the aid sector marginalises women refugees

HUMAN RIGHTS

SHIMA BAHRE I am a woman, a refugee from Darfur, and the co-founder of an organisation committed to supporting other Sudanese refugee women in Kampala, Uganda. I have heard about the localisation process in humanitarian aid, but I do not feel its effect. What I do feel, and experience on a daily basis, are the numerous ways women – especially refugee women – are discriminated against in the humanitarian system. My experiences have taught me that, wherever we go, women need to stand up for ourselves and take leadership because no one understands the issues women from war zones face…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Aid convoy beats blockade to reach Central African Republic’s capital

NEWS

A convoy of humanitarian aid reached the capital of Central African Republic on Monday - the first since attacks by rebel groups blocked a major transport route from Cameroon in January, the U.N. peacekeeping mission said. A surge in violence linked to a disputed December 27 election has forced more than 200,000 civilians to flee and brought other parts of the country to a standstill, stalling flows of food and driving up prices for basic goods in the capital Bangui. With an aerial escort, 13 of 100 blocked aid trucks were able to transport food and medicine along the 583-kilometre…