Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

NBA star builds hospital in The Congo

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Three years ago, a woman gave birth to premature triplets in a small village clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The doctors were not equipped to provide the medical care these tiny patients required, so the parents were told the babies would simply be left to die.

But the triplets’ father had heard about a new, state-of-the-art hospital just up the road built by Congolese American and former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo. The father begged the doctors to call the United States.

Mutombo says that phone call is just one example of why he decided to open a hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa. Built with funds raised through his Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, the hospital bears the name of his mother, Biamba Marie Mutombo, who he says taught him the importance of helping others.

“For everything she did for her children and for her family, the value of love and giving back and sharing. Not just with you, not just with your family, but with the people you encounter in life, with your community, and that was the kind of love that my mom gave.”

Mutombo hopes his hospital will help provide medical care desperately needed in the Congo. He says the hospital has treated more than 30,000 patients and employs nearly 400 doctors and nurses.

And those triplets? They spent more than three months on life-saving machines and now are thriving toddlers. The parents were so grateful that they named the babies after the 7-foot, 2-inch basketball player.

[CNN]

Fears of genocide brewing in Central African Republic

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The United Nations — estimating more than half of Central African Republic’s population is affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis — has said it fears genocide brewing.

According to the United Nations, more than 700,000 people across the Central African Republic have been displaced — including about 290,000 alone in the capital of Bangui — and 2.6 million “need immediate humanitarian assistance.”

Attempts to purge Muslims from parts of the war-torn country have prompted “a Muslim exodus of historic proportions,” according to rights group Amnesty International.

The UN’s top official on refugees, Antonio Guterres, said the country is “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“There is an ethnic-religious cleansing taking place. It must be stopped,” Guterres said. “There are people who are still being killed here and there — even some massacres still taking place.”

Massive refugee airlift underway from Central African Republic

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The Central African Republic was plunged into chaos last year after a coalition of rebels ousted the president, the latest in a series of coups since it gained independence. One of the rebels became interim President, and political turmoil and violence spiraled. In November 2013, the UN warned that Central African Republic was at risk of spiraling into genocide.

At least 1,000 people have died in the violence, and some 958,000 more, many of them children, have been forced from their homes within the Central African Republic, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR. Nearly a quarter of the population has been displaced.

On Saturday, an operation to airlift thousands of African migrants stranded in violence-ravaged Central African Republic in dire humanitarian conditions started. The airlift, on a specially chartered plane, has been set up by the International Organization for Migration in response to the urgent need for tens of thousands of migrants to flee the country. Priority has been given to families, especially women and children.

Three charter flights to Chad will be followed by two to Mali. In the past couple of weeks, the IOM has helped other African nations including Senegal and Burkino Fas, to evacuate thousands of their citizens. The operation to fly out all the migrants stranded in the country will likely take several weeks. Many are outside the capital, making movement dangerous and access difficult.

Many will need psychological and social support to help them recover from their experience, not least because foreigners have often been the target of the violence currently tearing the Central African Republic apart.

While nearly 27,000 migrants from neighboring countries have been evacuated by their countries, at least 33,000 more who’ve asked for help from their embassies remain in urgent need of aid, the IOM said.

Some evacuations from Homs despite gunfire and explosions

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Even though gunfire interrupted a U.N.-brokered humanitarian pause, more than 600 people, mostly women, children and senior citizens, were evacuated from the Syrian city of Homs, where rebels battle government troops and each other.

Vehicles from the Red Crescent and United Nations had a difficult time entering the city over the weekend as they were targeted by gunfire and explosives. But workers managed to deliver some aid to the thousands of people in the besieged section of the city known as Homs.

A photo on the Twitter feed of the Syrian Red Crescent showed dozens of people standing in the rubble of a street as aid workers passed out supplies and food. “Although the team was shelled and fired upon we managed to deliver 250 food parcels,190 hygiene kits and chronic diseases medicines,” the organization said in a tweet.

Who targeted the aid workers is in dispute. A Wall Street Journal reporter in Syria told CNN that workers in the convoy had no doubt the fire came from government forces. But the governor of the province, Talal al-Barazi, said it was two rival rebel factions — one that wants to keep civilians as human shields and another that wants to exchange them for aid.

Humanitarian deal in Homs

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The United Nations and the United States confirmed an agreement announced by Syrian rebels and the government of a planned cease-fire in the besieged Old City of Homs that would allow some people to flee and humanitarian aid to arrive for the first time in over a year.

Once the fighting halts, women, civilians over 55 and children under 15 can choose to leave the Old City if they agree not to take up arms against the government, he said.

After the first group of evacuations, Syrian troops would clear the way for a U.N. aid convoy packed with food and medicine to enter the area for the first time in more than a year.

According to SANA, the official Syrian news agency, the government would provide shelter, food and medical treatment to people who leave the Old City. In addition, the agreement calls for government forces to allow humanitarian assistance to people who remain in the besieged area, SANA reported. Valerie Amos, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said the cease-fire agreement would mean essential supplies for about 2,500 people in Homs.

[CNN]

Refugees starving to death in Damascus suburb

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In a rare moment of cooperation between the Syrian government and rebel forces, aid agencies say hundreds of people were allowed to evacuate over the weekend from a suburb of Damascus where the nearly three-year-old civil war has yielded yet another horror: Hunger so severe that a significant number of people are said to be now starving to death.

The evacuation from Yarmouk Camp, a rebel-held suburb just south of Damascus, comes after 89 people, most of them children and elderly people, have died of malnutrition-related diseases since January 1, according to Jamal Hammad, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. He said his count only includes cases with confirmed death certificates.

Children under the age of one and elderly people over 65 account for 60 percent of the deaths, he said.  The United Nations estimates that some 20,000 people remain there, virtually cut off from the rest of the world.

Osama, a 26-year-old former graduate student in economics who is also a local relief worker, said that in Yarmouk, people are eating cats, grass and cactus they are so hungry. Snipers have shot people dead while they are gathering grass to eat, he said.

In recent days, a small amount of food aid has trickled in through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Hammad’s wife Amal Ahmad, a trained x-ray technician who is also a relief worker, said this was the first actual food she and many she knows have eaten in at least four months. She said many people, especially children, had problems digesting the food since their stomachs are completely empty, and they vomited their first meals.

Osama said some people are down to consuming only water. “Sometimes we do this…drink some water with some sugar or some salt and go back to sleep. But when you go to the street you will find maybe the people next door…they’re dead,” he said.

Photographs of emaciated children have emerged across the Internet in recent days, purportedly from Yarmouk. Sources confirm that photos obtained by NBC News are of children in Yarmouk, and were taken in recent days and weeks.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said there are “widespread reports of malnutrition” including children with rickets and anemia. He also said, “people, including infants, are eating animal feed.”

Gunness said the aid allowed into Yarmouk so far is “shockingly inadequate to meet the dire needs of these civilians,” and called on Syrian authorities and all parties in the conflict to facilitate the rapid access of substantial quantities of food to civilians in Yarmouk.

Asked what Yarmouk needs most, Osama said, “We need to save the children inside Yarmouk. Maybe send them out of Syria…our families will be happy, believe me. Just save the children.”

Watch related video clip

[NBC]

A glimpse into the life of a Syrian refugee

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Hundreds of refugees from Syria making the long walk to safety in Jordan, one long jagged line stretching out into the open desert.

syrian refugees

They carried teapots and tiny gas canisters, shopping bags filled with clothes and overstuffed bundles of blankets balanced on their heads. Many held jerry cans, once full with water, now dangling empty.

young Syrian refugeesThe refugees came from the outskirts of Damascus, walking for days in order to escape the ugly civil war that has engulfed their country for the past three years.

Their destination, like so many thousands before them, is the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. The numbers are staggering: Syrian refugees are now estimated to make up 10% of Jordan’s population.

The population demographics in Zaatari are skewed towards women and children but also a surprising number of elderly residents. Consider these statistics: More than half (54%) of the camp’s residents are under the age of 17. 42% of families in the camp are led by a female head of household. 3% are more than 60-years old.

Nothing can take away from the pain and loss of being a refugee. But everyone we met had a remarkable story of resilience and determination. Zaatari is a remarkable place because its residents are building a strong community out of what little they have. They build homes, invest in businesses, plant vegetable gardens and paint works of art. But every single Syrian refugee I spoke to said the same thing: if the war stopped today, I would be home tomorrow.

[CNN]

Malnourished but defiant Syrians

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As nearly 600 days under siege sap the life and dignity out of the Old District in the Syrian city of Homs — leaving malnourished men with legs like noodles and soot-stained children to dig through homes turned into rubble for bits of firewood — diplomats in picturesque Geneva bicker over aid.

“The situation is unbearable and inhuman. Food, there is none. Medical supplies, there is none. Milk for children, there is none. It is beyond words.” Mohammed Abu Yahay tells CNN through a crackly Skype connection.

The Geneva peace talks seemed to matter little to residents living on perpetually empty bellies who demanded all parties put aside their differences to break the almost two-year siege of Homs rather than agree to a temporary solution from a reluctant regime.

The United States blamed the Syrian government for the dire situation, accusing it of waging a “kneel or starve campaign.” As the bitter winter cold retains its hold on the restive city, activists and residents say starvation and the lack of basic medical care claim lives regularly as Syrian troops and some opposition forces prevent the delivery of aid, according to a report from Human Rights Watch last month.

Tree leaves, grass, olives and stale grain are all that’s on the menu at many homes in the old districts of Homs, where many residents say they struggle to get just one meal a day on the table while loved ones with preventable diseases languish in a makeshift medical clinic with “medieval health care.”

“The world must help us; they can’t watch us drown in a sea of suffering, pain and death and do nothing after more than one and a half years of being under siege” the Rev. Frans, a Dutch Jesuit and longtime Syrian resident, said in broken Arabic on social media.

“I think that there is a lack of pressure from the international community on the barbaric regime. It is inhuman that they are fighting us over a loaf of bread. Cutting of water, electricity, and preventing any aid organization from entering. This situation reflects poorly on the international community to help these besieged areas,” Dr. Abo Ramez said.

[CNN]

 

Growing humanitarian crisis in South Sudan

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South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 after decades of war. Now, a month of conflict has now displaced about 413,000 people in South Sudan after a major surge in the number of people fleeing violence.

The violence has also forced about 78,000 to flee to neighboring countries, the United Nations said, on top of the hundreds of thousands displaced within South Sudan’s borders. Many are women and children. More than 42,000 people are now in Uganda’s West Nile region, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, while about 18,600 have sought refuge in Ethiopia. Nearly 6,800 people have fled to Kenya.And an estimated 10,000 have fled into Sudan’s volatile West Kordofan and South Kordofan states.

Hundreds of people have been wounded and thousands displaced, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said, also known as Doctors Without Borders. MSF said the medical needs of the displaced are placing existing health facilities under increasing pressure, with some clinics and hospitals already overwhelmed. The group added it was reinforcing emergency teams to deal with the rising health and humanitarian needs.

“While we continue to treat more wounded patients in our hospitals every day, we are also concerned about the living conditions of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people across the country, most of whom fled their homes with nothing and have little food, water, or access to health care,” Raphael Gorgeu, MSF head of mission in South Sudan, said in a statement. “The fighting in Malakal over the past few days has limited our ability to reach displaced people where they are gathering, preventing people from receiving the medical and humanitarian assistance they desperately need.”

85 of World’s Richest have same wealth as 3.5 Billion Poorest

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The world’s 85 wealthiest people have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people on the planet – half the Earth’s population. That’s according to Oxfam’s latest report on the risks of the widening gap between the super-rich and the poor.

The report, titled “Working for the Few,” was released Monday, and was compiled by Oxfam – an international organization looking for solutions against poverty and injustice.

Also, according to the Oxfam data, the richest 1 percent of people across the globe have $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the planet’s population – which effectively “presents significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems.”

“It is staggering that, in the 21st century, half of the world’s population — that’s three and a half billion people — own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus,” Oxfam chief executive Winnie Byanyima told a news conference.

And the number of the rich is steadily growing: for example, in India the number of billionaires skyrocketed from six to 61 in the past 10 years, and their combined net worth is currently $250 billion.

The report comes ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos which begins later this week, and urges the world leaders to discuss how to tackle this pressing issue.

P.S. – Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available, according to Oxfam.

 [RT]