World facing greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945

The world is facing its largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, the United Nations says, issuing a plea for help to avoid “a catastrophe”.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said that more than 20 million people faced the threat of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria.

“We stand at a critical point in history,” Mr O’Brien told the Security Council on Friday. “Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations. … More than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease.

“Children stunted and out of school. Livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost. Communities’ resilience rapidly wilting away. Development gains reversed. Many will be displaced and will continue to move in search for survival, creating ever more instability across entire regions.”

Mr O’Brien’s comments follow on from a similar appeal made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last month.

[BBC]

Up to 450,000 IDPs expected in cramped Mosul camps

There may not be enough space in camps to accommodate the tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDP) currently fleeing their homes in western Mosul amid intense fighting in the city, a United Nations official has said.

At least 50,000 people have made their way to the camps on the eastern side of the Tigris River, but the UN warns that if the number rapidly increases, they will be hard pressed to find a place for the new arrivals.

Up to 450,000 are expected to make their way to the camps, Lise Grande, humanitarian coordinator for the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, said. Field workers, she said, are “working around the clock” to construct additional emergency tents as quickly as possible.

As the US-led Iraqi army offensive to retake the western half of the city from ISIL continues to push on, at least 700,000 civilians are still trapped inside, with food and fuel supplies fast dwindling.

Supported by the US-led coalition bombing ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Iraqi forces began the operation to retake the western part of Mosul on February 19. West Mosul is the largest remaining urban stronghold in the “caliphate” declared by ISIL in 2014.

[Al Jazeera]

Digital disaster response

What do you do if you are a disaster manager in a coastal city when a powerful earthquake hits offshore?

• You start tweeting life-saving updates and safety information to the public, alert your volunteers via SMS and set up a helpline.
• You host a conference call for rescue workers using open-source tools and provide them with access to key documents via an online file-sharing service before reaching out to emergency accommodation providers through lodgings websites.

At a conference on resilience in New Orleans this week, technology companies outlined the increasingly sophisticated tools they are offering – on an altruistic basis – to help people cope better when disasters strike.

Cloud communications platform Twilio.org is partnering with the International Rescue Committee charity so that refugees in Greece can find out the date of their asylum appointment in their own language via a phone-based voice response system.

Twitter aims to “weaponize Twitter in a disaster” by helping users make the most of different features – from dedicated hashtags to Twitter handle lists, adverts and live video – to get vital information to those affected as quickly as possible. If communications go down or are overloaded in a disaster, an SMS version of Twitter can be activated.

Yet while these companies are seeking innovative ways to assist in disasters, they acknowledged technology cannot always substitute for human support.

When New Orleans was battered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, around two-thirds of the lowest-income groups do not have access to the internet, said Estes White, adding that offline information remained essential to piece together a full picture of the situation on the ground and reach all those in need. “I would caution against thinking that social media is a total solution,” she said.

[Thomson Reuters Foundation]

European Court of Justice rules against humanitarian visas for refugees

The European Court of Justice has ruled that refugees do not have to be granted humanitarian visas to the EU.

The court handed down its ruling in connection with a case brought by a Syrian family of five from Aleppo. The family had initially applied for a visa to Belgium at the Belgian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. They then planned to travel to Belgium where they would apply for asylum.

EU states are also not obliged to accept everyone who has experienced a catastrophic situation, the Foreign Office said.

Legally, refugees can currently enter the EU only under the new resettlement program. Between July 2015 and February 2017, some 14,422 people from Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon were able to enter the EU and apply for asylum using this method.

[Deutsche Welle]

Pre-dawn raids across US to deport the undocumented impacting Mexico

Last week, a series of before-dawn raids by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) were launched in a number of American cities in at least six States. Immigrant rights advocates and the Mexican government are redoubling efforts to support Mexican citizens in the States.

Where ICE once only targeted undocumented people who had been convicted of criminal activity, now they are detaining those without criminal records, according to a number of activists who deal with undocumented peoples’ legal cases.

Activists explain that many undocumented people do not know that they don’t need – by law – to open the door. If the undocumented person opens their door, that is where the trouble starts, explains Francisco Moreno, COFEM community director, who works with people affected by raids. “If the person opens the door, [the ICE officers] can register everyone that’s inside – even non-criminals.” Detainees are removed from their homes in handcuffs, taken to a vehicle outside, and asked questions, said Moreno.

“It’s hard to overstate how disruptive this is, how wrenching this can be – people picked up in a raid might be the only source of income for a whole family, dressed their kids for school in the morning, cooks for their family, they might be a person supporting an elder parent or young baby. To imagine that person would be ripped away – imagine how it could affect everyone around them is extremely serious,” a representative of activist group KIWA said.

In recent weeks, Mexico has hastily established a program called Somos Mexicanos – We are Mexicans – designed to inform freshly deported or otherwise returned citizens from the US of programs available to reintegrate them into Mexican society.

Mexico has been struggling in recent weeks to cope with a sudden influx of refugees from across the country and around the world – from El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and countries in Africa – to its northern border towns, hoping to cross over into the US before the Trump administration further tightens border controls. Despite the sudden added pressure on its resources, Mexico has also managed to offer Haitian refugees and others papers where the US has made it clear it will not.

Humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Yemen as world refuses to act

Yemen is now classified as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, described by the UN as being “on the brink of famine”. Yemen is listed as the worst-affected country facing potential famine, where more than 7 million people require emergency food assistance.

When I was in Yemen last August, I’ll never forget the looks on the parents’ faces. They were so ashamed and embarrassed — unable to afford the most basic food for their children who now lay in hospital on the verge of death, some with their stomachs bloated and others with their tiny ribs sticking out.

Seventeen-month-old Eissa’s mum sat on the bed holding her lifeless son, tears streaming out of her eyes. We went back to that hospital the next day. Eissa’s bed was empty. He had died overnight.

It’s hard to believe the situation in Yemen has gotten so much worse since then. The UN says there are more than 460,000 children like Eissa who are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

“While Yemen is being starved or is starving, there is nothing really that is actually taking place to actually fix it,” said Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s top aid official in Yemen. “What we are facing is a generation of young kids who are going to be stunted. They are never going to reach their full potential physically and intellectually, because of the importance of those early years and the right nutrition.”

The plight of children starving to death in Yemen was first reported around March last year. The world knows this is happening but is refusing to act and is choosing to ignore what is happening.

[ABC.au]

Bridging the humanitarian and development nexus

Humanitarian aid and development actors “have an opportunity to do what we are all talking about — bridging the humanitarian and development divide,” said World Food Program Executive Director Ertharin Cousin at the Oslo Humanitarian Conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin.

During the conference, 14 donors pledged $458 million for relief efforts in 2017 and an additional $214 million for 2018 and beyond. Pledges have been announced by the European Commission, Norway, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Republic of Korea.

More than 170 representatives from 40 countries and several high-level U.N. representatives gathered in Oslo Friday to discuss the humanitarian response to the Lake Chad Basin, where $1.5 billion is needed in 2017 to assist more than 8 million people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

[Read full Devex article]