US and Russia nearing humanitarian agreement solution for east Aleppo?

Syrian troops continues to blitz east Aleppo, as part of an operation to seize control of the area held by rebels for more than four years. The Syrian al-Assad government now holds some 60% of eastern Aleppo, making swift gains since breaking through rebel defense lines.

Food stocks, clean water supplies and medicine are running dry in eastern Aleppo. Russia has begun sending in aid and setting up mobile clinics, after all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo were bombed beyond use. Rebels hit a Russian mobile hospital in Aleppo, killing one medic and injuring two doctors, Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency reported.

The United States and Russia announced Saturday they were working together on an agreement to have all rebel groups expelled from eastern Aleppo and to ensure safe delivery of aid there by humanitarian staff.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow and Washington planned talks on the routes and timing of the withdrawal of rebels.

“Once they’re set, a ceasefire regime will come into force to start the evacuation of these armed groups. If US-Russian cooperation on this will bring results — and we have all reasons to believe it will do so — then the problem of eastern Aleppo will be effectively solved,” he said, adding it would allow “smooth humanitarian aid delivery” and normalize life there.

[CNN]

UN launches $1 billion appeal for northeast Nigeria

With the scale of human suffering in north-eastern Nigeria becoming clearer as the Government has pushed Boko Haram insurgents from more and more areas, the United Nations launched a $1 billion funding appeal to address the needs of those in crisis, and announced that nearly 75 partner agencies are on standby to respond where areas are accessible.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) throughout 2016, human suffering has become more apparent as the Nigerian Armed Forces pushed Boko Haram out of areas the group had held. The response area shifted from Abuja to Borno state, enabling easier access to the vulnerable population for the humanitarian teams, however, the conflict scaled up and so did the urgent need for more assistance.

“This is the largest crisis on the African continent and I am confident that with the support of the international community and the private sector, we can begin to bring hope to the people of the north-east,” stressed Peter Lundberg, the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator, while also complimenting the Government of Nigeria and the initiative behind the Inter-Ministerial Task Force on their full cooperation to address the humanitarian situation.

While fear of unexploded improvised devices prevents farmers from planting for a third year in a row, nearly 5.1 million people are expected to face serious food shortages.

“The narrative on this humanitarian crisis can no longer be ignored and we are appealing to the international community to help us prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians over the coming 12 months,” stated Mr. Lundberg.

[UN News Centre]

Climate change could spark major humanitarian crisis, experts say

Climate change—and resultant natural disasters, droughts, and sea level rise—”could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions,” senior military figures told the Guardian on Thursday.

Specifically, the experts echoed a recent warning from the United Nations that without radical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, “we will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy,” as the number of global climate refugees climbs.

“We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people,” Maj. Gen. Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh, told the Guardian.

“Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions,” added Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney, a member of the U.S. State Department’s foreign affairs policy board and CEO of the American Security Project. “We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity, and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.”

Such a crisis would serve “as an accelerant of instability,” Cheney said—even more so than it has already.

[Read full Common Dreams article]

World AIDS Day Statement from USAID Administrator

Every year on December 1^st, we celebrate the tremendous progress the world has made in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), … and driven by cutting-edge research and data, our collective efforts have saved millions of lives and are beginning to turn the tide against HIV/AIDS. Building on the leadership of President George W. Bush and bipartisan champions in Congress, President Obama has expanded antiretroviral therapy treatment more than five-fold over the last eight years.

Today, PEPFAR is supporting 11.5 million people around the world with life-saving treatment, exceeding its 2016 target. Our efforts have reduced new pediatric infections globally by nearly 70 percent since 2000.

[However] our work is far from finished. Only 18 million out of the 37 million people living with HIV worldwide are currently on treatment, and thousands of people cannot access proper care because they suffer the indignity of stigmatization and isolation.

[But] together, we can end AIDS worldwide by 2030.

[USAID]

UN says half the population of Central African Republic needs humanitarian support

With nearly half the population in the Central African Republic (CAR) in need of humanitarian assistance, some $400 million is required over the coming year to shore up relief efforts that will be critical “to save the lives of people who are among the poorest and most forgotten on this planet,” a senior United Nations official said today.

Clashes between the mainly Muslim Séléka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian, plunged the country of 4.5 million people into civil conflict in 2013. Despite significant progress and successful elections, CAR has remained in the grip of instability and sporadic unrest. More than 13,000 UN staff are currently based in the country as part of the UN Integrated Multifaceted Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic.

Despite its considerable agricultural potential, CAR has some of the highest chronic malnutrition rates in the world – almost one in two children – due to ongoing insecurity, poor access to clean water and health care, as well as lack of seeds and tools. Maternal and early childhood mortality rates are also among the highest in the world.

Eruptions of violence over the past year meant that one in 10 remains a refugee, the majority in neighboring Cameroon, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

[UN News Centre]

Record number of boat migrants reach Italy this year

A record number of migrants have reached Italy by boat from North Africa in 2016, according to official data. As of Nov. 28, 171,299 boat migrants had reached Italy’s shores, the Interior Ministry said, compared to the previous record of 170,100 for all of 2014.

Italy has borne the brunt of new arrivals since the implementation in March of an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to curb the flow of migrants sailing for Greece. In the past three years, Italy has recorded nearly half a million migrant arrivals. Many have fled war, poverty or political oppression.

The influx has brought a record number of asylum requests this year in Italy where more than 176,000 asylum seekers now live in shelters. This is putting the country’s asylum process and legal system under increasing pressure.

Most of the migrants who have come to Italy this year are Africans of various nationalities. Some 36,000 Nigerians have made the trip, about 21 percent of the total, along with 20,000 Eritreans and more than 12,000 from Guinea.

An estimated 4,663 migrants have died in the Mediterranean this year as a record number of unaccompanied minors have come to Italy.

[Reuters]

Humanitarian aid work gets more complex and less safe

Following are excerpts of a Newsweek Opinion piece by Thomas Arcaro, professor of sociology at Elon University:

The need for humanitarian support globally is rising at a much higher rate than can be met by currently available material and human resources. In our imperfect world there will always be a need for humanitarian efforts, and those tasked with directly addressing these needs feel both a personal and professional responsibility to deliver.

My research and book, “Aid Worker Voices,” focus on aid workers. Many veteran aid workers observed that the core aspects of the work have slowly become more complex in the last several decades. A lack of safety is an increasingly palpable fact of life. They report seeing friends and colleagues get raped, kidnapped and, yes, even beheaded.

One respondent said about the difficulties inherent in her profession that she just wants to “get back to the work that I am fiercely proud of,” instead of fearing for her safety.

Humanitarian principles like neutrality and impartiality that once seemed so self-evident have been drawn into question, especially on the politically and ethnically complex battlefields of Iraq and Syria. Humanitarian safety protocol that seemed straightforward in places like Aceh, Malaysia or even Port-au-Prince, Haiti, appear almost quaint now on the battlefields in the Middle East where even aid convoys have become targets.

Tufts University researcher Antonio Donini put it this way: “Humanitarianism started off as a powerful discourse; now it is a discourse of power, both at the international and at the community level.” Aid workers are caught in power squabbles as they try to deliver needed supplies, medical care and support for those in need.

The confines of the system within which aid workers struggle to work includes the humanitarian aid industry, and the larger economic and political forces that shape our world.

[Newsweek] 

Southern Africa cries for help from El Niño

Malawi is one of seven southern African countries on the brink of starvation and in a situation that the UN says needs requires immediate action.

It has been devastated by a combination of a long drought caused by a strong El Niño weather cycle and climate change. Successive maize harvests have failed, leaving communities there and in Zambia, Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and elsewhere, desperate for food.

Madagascar is the most critical, said David Phiri, UN food and agriculture coordinator based in Harare, Zimbabawe. “Hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine. We may see deaths there from starvation. People appear to have no food or money. The cost of inaction or further delaying our response is too ghastly to contemplate. It needs immediate action,” he warned.

Forty million people in southern Africa and a further 11 million in Ethiopia will need food aid over the next few months, Phiri said. But many may get little or nothing because only 25% of the $2.9bn in aid sought by the seven most affected countries has been pledged. A separate World Food programme appeal for $600m is only half-funded.

[The Guardian]

Thousands of Haitians stranded at US-Mexico border

Desperate Haitian immigrants have been massing along the U.S.-Mexico border for months seeking humanitarian relief.

After the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, thousands of citizens migrated to Brazil looking for work. But as Brazil has slipped into recession in recent years, many of them have hit the road again, heading north on a 6,000-mile journey to the U.S. border — by every means of conveyance.

“Taxi, bus, plane, bicycle, boat, horses, and we’ve walked for five days,” says Pierre Smith, 34, a smiling, broad-faced accountant from Port-au-Prince. He’s staying at the San Juan Bosco, an immigrant shelter on a barren hilltop in Nogales, Mexico, while he and 100 of his countrymen wait to cross into Nogales, Ariz.

These Haitians want the same generous benefits that were extended after the earthquake, when they got protection from deportation and temporary work permits. But the U.S. welcome mat is gone, and the new wave of Haitians is in for a harsh reception. The Homeland Security Department announced new rules in September. All Haitians who show up at the border without papers and who don’t ask for asylum are now detained.

Pierre Smith knows this. He and others like him won’t be granted asylum because they’re fleeing poverty, not political persecution — so once they cross, they will join nearly 4,500 other Haitians currently in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“When I get there, I don’t mind staying in detention,” he said, standing on the front steps of the shelter in a black muscle shirt. “I am looking for a better life.”

The United States allowed in 60,000 Haitian immigrants as a result of the earthquake. Now officials have heard that as many as 40,000 more have left Brazil for the United States. However, the US government has run out of detention space. This is why the Haitians are bottle-necked all along the western U.S.-Mexico border.

 [NPR]

UN readies to send humanitarian help to Aleppo as rebels agree to aid delivery

UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said he had received approval from armed Syrian opposition groups, saying they would uphold the conditions needed for aid to be urgently delivered to East Aleppo.

Under the arrangement, medical evacuations and new doctors would also be rotated into the besieged city.

Humanitarian workers were prepared to be deployed with hundreds of truckloads of medical equipment, food and other supplies needed in eastern Aleppo.

[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]