January 27, 2022 No comments
UNICEF providing aid for children caught up in Syria prison siege
INTERNATIONAL, 27 January 2022, Humanitarian Aid - Boys and girls caught up in intense fighting which raged for six days around a besieged prison in northeast Syria, need protection and assistance, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said on Thursday. ISIL fighters launched an assault on the Ghwayran/Sinai’i detention centre in the city of Hasakeh last week, in an attempt to free some of their counterparts, sparking fighting with Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) who control the facility. More than 5,000 men are being held inside the prison, including up to 700 boys. According to news reports, the US-led coalition-allied SDF fighters have now regained full control of the prison, after some ISIL-affiliated detainees reportedly used some of the boys as human shields during the stand-off....
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January 27, 2022 No comments
Food insecurity soaring across 20 hunger hotspots
INTERNATIONAL, 27 January 2022, Humanitarian Aid - Food insecurity is soaring across 20 countries and regions - “hunger hotspots”, where conflict, economic shocks, natural hazards, political instability, and limited humanitarian access, are putting millions of lives at risk, UN agencies highlighted on Thursday. According to the Hunger Hotspots Report from the World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain the countries of highest concern. According to the most recent assessments, all four countries had areas where people were experiencing, or projected to experience, starvation and death (IPC Phase 5), requiring the most urgent attention. The report shows that the links between hunger and conflict are complex and far-reaching. In fact, many of the people that WFP supports are fleeing conflict and have...
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January 27, 2022 No comments
UN report finds nature conservation funding must triple globally this decade
INTERNATIONAL, 27 January 2022, Climate and Environment - G20 leading industrialized nations must embrace their role as influential leaders against climate change, by aligning development and economic recovery with international nature and climate goals, according to a new UN report, published on Thursday. In its joint report on finance for nature in the G20 countries, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative, examined how wealthy nations can better support nature-based solutions (NbS). In addition to promoting sustainable farming and supply chains, or intiatives such as creating green spaces in cities to tackle rising heat, G20 States - a group representing many of the world's most advanced economies - must address interrelated climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises by increasing their annual investments in nature to $285 billion by 2050, said the State of Finance for Nature in the G20 report. Trillion-dollar gap The...
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January 27, 2022 No comments
UN assisting thousands affected by Tropical Storm Ana in Mozambique
INTERNATIONAL, 27 January 2022, Humanitarian Aid - UN teams are on the ground in Mozambique assisting thousands of people affected by Tropical Storm Ana, which made landfall in central and northern regions of the country earlier this week. More than 45,000 people, including 23,000 women and children, are likely to need humanitarian aid, UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said on Thursday. UNICEF is deploying staff and preparing medical and nutrition supplies, water, sanitation and hygiene kits, as well as setting up temporary learning spaces to support children and their families. The agency estimates it will need $3.5 million to respond to the immediate needs. ‘Blunt reminder’ of climate reality Maria Luisa Fornara, UNICEF Representative in Mozambique, said they are working alongside the government and partners to ensure children...
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January 25, 2022 No comments
Madagascar: Deadly tropical storms cause flooding, landslides
INTERNATIONAL, 25 January 2022, Humanitarian Aid - Two separate tropical weather systems in Madagascar have left at least 34 dead and triggered flooding and landslides, particularly in the capital, Antananarivo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday. Over the last week intense rainfall has pummelled the African island country in the Indian Ocean, sparking multiple crises across the country’s central Analamanga Region. “The Government, municipal authorities in Antananarivo and humanitarians are mobilizing assistance to people impacted by flooding in the capital”, OCHA tweeted, saying that “providing access to water, food and other vital items in displacement sites is the top priority”. The rains were initially driven by an Intertropical Convergence Zone, around the equator, around 17 January and increased when a Tropical Depression,...
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