Insignificant number of Calais refugees as compared to other countries

British Prime Minister David Cameron warned of the threat posed by “a swarm of people” who were “coming across the Mediterranean … wanting to come to Britain”. His foreign secretary Philip Hammond upped the ante. The chaos at the Channel tunnel in Calais, he declared, was caused by “marauding migrants who posed an existential threat.”

In reality the French port of Calais is a sideshow, home to a few thousand migrants.

Europe’s real refugee crisis is in the Mediterranean. More than 180,000 have reached Italy and Greece by sea alone this year.  The impact on Greece, already wracked with crisis, is at tipping point.

[Despite the media circus] Britain is not a main destinations for either refugees or illegal migrants. Last year 25,870 sought asylum in the UK and only 10,050 were accepted. By contrast, Sweden accepted three times as many and Germany had more than 200,000 asylum and new asylum applicants.

[But if you are talking refugees, in sheer numbers,] nothing in Europe matches the millions who have been driven to seek refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan or Jordan. Set against such a global drama, Calais is little more than deathly theatre.

[The Guardian]

One year after war, people of Gaza still sit among the ruins

A year after the halt to hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Aug. 26, 2014, not a single one of the nearly 18,000 homes destroyed or severely damaged in Gaza is habitable.Those involved in the process, and advocacy groups, attribute the slow pace to Palestinian political infighting, Israel’s involvement in approving projects and participants, and a lack of funds. International donors have sent about $340 million of the $2.5 billion they pledged for Gaza’s reconstruction last fall, and much of that was spent on removing rubble, on temporary housing for 100,000 displaced residents or on minor repairs. Palestinian civil-society groups pushed forward a petition this month calling for an end to the reconstruction mechanism, saying that Israel’s access to a database of destroyed homes and its role in reviewing applications only entrenched its control over Gaza, a position echoed in a report published this week by Gisha, an Israeli group that promotes freedom of movement for Palestinians. Mofeed M. Al Hassaina, the Gaza-based minister of housing and public works, said 455,000 tons of rubble had been cleared; 1.5 million tons remain. According to the mechanism’s website, 115 larger projects, like schools, hospitals and roads, are in progress, 15 have been completed, and 237 are in the approval pipeline. Bashir Rayyes, the Palestinian Authority’s coordinator for Gaza reconstruction, said 95 percent of Gaza’s electric grid and water supply had been restored. Fouad Harara has a photograph of his former and future home affixed to the tent he put up after the fighting stopped last August, where has spent virtually every day since. It shows a flourishing nut tree, which he said was felled by Israeli bombs. A few yards away, green branches sprout from the ground, some part of the tree apparently having revived itself. “We are the same–our homes and ourselves,” said Mr. Harara’s brother Abed, 53. “We will not die. Our roots are like this tree.” [New York Times]

Aid group makes humanitarian plea after 65 killed in Yemen

Doctors Without Borders made a dramatic appeal to Yemen’s warring factions to halt attacks on civilians, a day after heavy fighting in a key southern city killed more than 65 people and wounded at least 23.

“We call on the warring parties to stop attacking civilian targets, especially hospitals, ambulances and densely populated neighborhoods and allow medical personnel and humanitarian organizations to provide assistance,” the aid group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF, said in a statement. “Patients and MSF staff are unable to reach hospitals due to the heavy fighting and airstrikes,” adding that 923 people have been wounded over the past three days, and that 133 of them died due to their severe injuries.

Only seven of Taiz’s 21 hospitals are currently open but they are “totally overwhelmed” and have run out of essential medication, MSF said.

Yemen’s fighting pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and troops loyal to President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, which are backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

[The Daily Star (Lebanon)]

Humanitarian crisis in Yemen

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), Johannes Van Der Klaauw, has warned that after almost five months of fighting, a lack of unhindered access to people who urgently need humanitarian assistance and a shortage of funding are creating the possibility of famine for millions in Yemen.

Almost 4,500 people have been killed and a further 23,000 have been wounded since the escalation in March of the conflict between forces loyal to the exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and those allied to the Houthi rebel movement.

Since 26 March, when the Saudi-led coalition began bombing rebel forces, at least 1,950 civilians have been killed and 4,271 wounded in air strikes and fighting on the ground, according to the UN.

The destruction of infrastructure and restrictions on imports imposed by a Saudi-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the rebels have led to 21 million people being deprived of life-sustaining commodities and basic services, and requiring help from aid organizations.

Just under half of Yemen’s population is under 18 and almost 400 children are among those to have been killed. The UN children’s fund (Unicef) warned on 19 August that an average of eight children were being killed or maimed every day.

An estimated 12.9 million people are now considered food insecure, an increase of 20% in six months, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). Six million are severely food insecure, while more than 1.2 million children are suffering from moderate acute malnutrition and half a million are severely malnourished.

[BBC]

Packing up a van and heading to Calais

A growing number of Britons with no previous aid experience are travelling to France, moved by the plight of refugees. Libby Freeman, a 33-year-old set designer from London, is one of a growing number of people from the UK who are sick of waiting for a political solution to the plight of migrants in Calais, France.

“I’ve no idea what to expect, but what I do know is that I have to do something. I can’t sit here and just watch,” says Freeman as she finishes filling her two white vans with donated tents – collected from a music festival this summer – shoes, winter clothing and a second-hand bicycle.

“The government aren’t looking at it as a humanitarian issue, they’re looking at it as a political issue. I find it unbelievable, it’s all about keeping them out, it’s so brazen, the government aren’t even pretending to help,” Freeman said.

Over the last week, Freeman raised £500 through her Crowdfunder page to buy sanitary items and toiletries that she made up into 50 wash bags to distribute at the camp. She set up collection points in several warehouses around east London.

“You don’t need humanitarian training to show support. If everyone saw stuff like I did in Calais, the world would be a better place.”

[The Guardian]

Humanitarian crisis in Syria worsening

The top U.N. humanitarian official said Monday that the conflict in Syria continues to escalate and that he is “horrified” by what he’s seen. Stephen O’Brien spoke to reporters at the end of a three-day visit to Syria.”I am absolutely horrified by the total disregard for civilian life by all parties in this conflict,” he said.

Syria has been locked in a civil war since 2011. At least 250,000 Syrians have been killed, more than a million injured, and almost half of the population have been displaced, according to O’Brien.

Warning that the conflict in Syria undermines the security of the region and elsewhere, O’Brien called on the international community to give more. He said that the humanitarian appeal for the year is less than 30% funded, some three-quarters of the way into 2015. “It’s vital that we say that this is unacceptable ….,” O’Brien told CNN.

“Equally, we have to give space for the political track because there is no military solution to this. There is not even a humanitarian solution. We can do our best to try and save the lives and protect the civilians, but almost anything we do is never going to be enough,” he said.

[CNN]