3 October 2017 – Dwindling resources could severely jeopardize efforts to provide refugees and displaced persons across the Middle East with essential winter supplies such as thermal blankets and warm clothing, the United Nations refugee agency has warned.
For many it will be the seventh consecutive winter in displacement, living in tents or in makeshift settlements in near-freezing temperatures.
“We estimate that as many as four million are at extreme risk and need timely and substantial help to properly prepare for the forthcoming winter [and] of these only one in four are likely to get the assistance they need,” said Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), calling for greater funding for the agency’s response plan to ensure help is provided to all in desperate need.
According to estimates, there are nearly 15 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons across the region, in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq.
With their needs rising significantly during winter due to the harsh conditions, ensuring sufficient funding for UN agency’s Regional Winter Assistance Plan for 2017/2018 (amounting to $245 million but only 26 per cent funded) is critical, the spokesperson noted.
“Without proper help, many refugee families end up being pushed further into debt and come under increased pressure to resort to desperate steps to try to make ends meet. Women and children are especially affected,” Mr. Mahecic added.
Throughout this autumn (September-November), UNHCR plans to provide cash assistance, distribute winter items and invest in preparation, insulation and repairs of shelters, as well as improve drainage in the camps.
With sufficient funding, the Regional Plan will ensure basic winter necessities – including blankets, clothing, tarpaulin and fuel – are provided to refugees and displaced persons. It will also assist those living below the poverty line with a special assistance programme.
More than 50 per cent of the assistance package is scheduled to be delivered in cash which would allow refugees and the internally displaced to address their priorities and meet urgent needs.
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September has been the deadliest month in Syria’s civil war so far this year, a monitoring group has said.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said more than 3,300 people had died in September, including 995 civilians.
Of those civilian deaths, it said about 70% were caused by Russian, Syrian government, or coalition air strikes.
The group bases its casualty reports on information provided by a network of activists in Syria.
It counted 207 children among the civilian dead, along with some 790 pro-government fighters, more than 700 from so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda affiliates, and some 550 rebels.
The SOHR says it is a non-political and independent monitoring group, though it does not publish its methodology or verification process.
Many of the deaths have occurred during the fighting between the country’s multiple factions and IS. But air strikes in Syria have continued as the jihadist group has lost most of its territory in the country.
An alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters has mostly reclaimed the northern city of Raqqa, the group’s former de facto capital.
Its last remaining stronghold in Syria is the province surrounding the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.
Russian air forces are supporting the Syrian military in their attempts to fully retake the city.
A long-running siege of Deir al-Zour was broken by Syrian military forces in early September. In the aftermath, the SOHR said dozens of civilians had been killed in air strikes outside the city.
The Syrian Defence Forces – fighters which oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but are also fighting IS – have also claimed to be hit by Russian and Syrian air strikes, a charge which Russia denies.
And last week, Human Rights Watch said a pair of air strikes by the US-led coalition in March had killed at least 84 civilians.
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(Source)
(Image Source: Reuters)
24 March 2017 – An estimated 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in Mosul’s Old City as fighting intensifies and people continue to flee, the United Nations refugee agency representative today warned.
“The worst is yet to come,” said Bruno Geddo, the Representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Iraq.
Speaking by phone, Mr. Geddo said the fighting in the west has been more intense than in the less densely populated east of the city, where the battle ended in January.
“People are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he added. “There’s fighting shelling, bombing.”
When people try to flee, extremists shoot them. Some have tried to leave during prayers or under cover of fog at first light – but were killed, Mr. Geddo said.
Meanwhile, life in the Old City is becoming impossible with a lack of food, clean water or fuel, Mr. Geddo said.
Meeting with civilians at the UNHCR transit and reception centre at Hammam al-Alil, outside of the city centre, Mr. Geddo said the number of people moving through has “surged” in recent days with up to 12,000 people arriving daily.
Some 340,000 people have been displaced since the fighting in Mosul started last October. Of those, about 72,000 have returned home.
The UN representative called on all those fighting to allow civilians to leave areas of conflict for safer zones, and no one should be forced to come back home.
“Liberating Mosul is necessary but not sufficient,” Mr. Geddo said. “We equally have to get it right with the protection of civilians and in the humanitarian response.”
(Source)
(Photo Credit: UNHCR/Ivor Prickett)
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14 March 2017 – The conflict in Syria is the “worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II,” the United Nations human rights chief today said, calling for an end to all tortures, executions and unfair trials, and at the very least, for the names and localities of people held in detention or information about where they are buried.
“Today, in a sense the entire country has become a torture-chamber: a place of savage horror and absolute injustice,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein told a high-level panel discussion at the Human Rights Council on the situation of human rights in Syria.
The entire conflict is “this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity,” Mr. Zeid said.
The High Commissioner said that he had recently met with a group of Syrian women whose relatives had been detained or are simply missing. Their relatives are among the “countless people” in Syria to suffer arbitrary detention, torture, kidnapping, and enforced disappearance.
The Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) has been refused access to the country, and no international human rights observers are admitted to check on sites where “very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held,” Mr. Zeid said.
Despite a limited access, OHCHR is working alongside the Commission of Inquiry to collect and analyze evidence, building up the basis for criminal proceedings against individual perpetrators.
In his statement, Mr. Zeid noted that the conflict started with torture which spawned “rebel movements, fueling violent extremists and setting the stage for a regional and proxy war.”
Nearly 6.3 million people have been displaced and an additional 4.9 million people – mostly women and children – were forced to seek refuge since 2011, according to UN figures.
His comments come as the conflict in Syria is entering its seventh years, triggered on 15 and 16 March, 2011, when authorities clamped down on demonstrations in Damascus, setting off massive anti-Government protests.
Mr. Zeid called also for “ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations,” if Syrians are ever to find peace and reconciliation.
(Source)
(Photo: UNHCR/A. D’Amato)
13 March 2017 – The suffering of children in war-torn Syria “hit rock bottom” in 2016 with the highest number of grave violations against them since verification began in 2014, underscored the United Nations children’s agency urging all parties to the conflict, those who have influence over them, and anyone who cared about children to find an immediate political solution to end the conflict.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least 652 children were killed last year – a 20 per cent increase compared to 2015 – 255 among them were killed in or near a school. Maiming and recruitment of children also rose sharply as violence across the country saw a drastic escalation.
“The depth of suffering is unprecedented. Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis, their lives turned upside down,” said the UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, in a news release announcing the study Hitting Rock Bottom – How 2016 became the worst year for Syria’s children.
“Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being and future,” he added.
The UN agency also highlighted that challenges accessing several parts of the country obstructed a full assessment of children’s suffering and delivering urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
The most vulnerable among Syria’s children are the 2.8 million in hard-to-reach areas, including 280,000 children living under siege, almost completely cut off from humanitarian aid.
“Beyond the bombs, bullets and explosions, children are dying in silence often from diseases that can otherwise be easily prevented. Access to medical care, lifesaving supplies and other basic services remains difficult,” read the release.
UNICEF also warned that coping mechanisms are eroding both within Syria and across its borders – families are taking extreme measures just to survive, often pushing children into early marriage and child labour.
After six years of war, nearly six million children now depend on humanitarian assistance, a twelve-fold increase from 2012. Millions of children have been displaced, some up to seven times.
According to estimates, over 2.3 million children are now living as refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.
Remarkable stories of courage, hope
However, there are some “remarkable stories” of children determined to pursue their hopes and aspirations, added the UN agency.
Darsy (aged 12), now a refugee in Turkey said: “I want to be a surgeon to help the sick and injured people of Syria. I dream of a Syria without a war so we can go home. I dream of a world without any wars.”
“We continue to witness the courage of Syria’s children,” said Mr. Cappelaere. “Many have crossed frontlines just to sit for school exams. They insist on learning, including in underground schools. There is so much more we can and should do to turn the tide for Syria’s children.”
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(Image Source: UNICEF)
28 December 2016 – Since operations began to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) two months ago, some 114,042 people have been displaced and as many as one million are out of reach of humanitarian assistance.
According to the latest report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the ongoing conflict has rendered it is impossible to state a definitive estimate on the number of people who are still living in ISIL-controlled areas.
However, the humanitarian community is concerned that conditions for these communities are deteriorating, as basic goods have not been replaced in western parts of the city since the city’s supply routes were closed last month.
Of particular concern is the safety and security of children, as more than 50,000 have been affected due to the Mosul military operation and surrounding conflict. Hamida Lasseko, Deputy Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Iraq, told UN News that the agency is working with the Iraqi Government to provide basic services, psychosocial support, and education to children.
“This is going to be our main area of focus – to advocate for the education of children. This will also help to keep the children safe: they will be protected from being recruited, affected from the armed conflict, and they will also be able to access their basic rights,” she said.
“We continue to ask all those who are involved in the conflict to leave children to grow as children so that they have a normal life,” Ms. Lasseko said, emphasizing that “they should stop using children for the benefit of the war.”
For those who are now living at camps, humanitarian assistance includes basic services such as clean drinking water, latrines, medical assistance. OCHA emphasized that providing new plots to accommodate people who have recently fled is an urgent priority: just last week, an additional 10,170 people were displaced.
However, security incidents have threatened aid operations in eastern Mosul. On 22 December, three suicide car bombs exploded in Gogchali, an area on the eastern outskirts of the city adjacent to the main access route. These explosions were in addition to mortar fire that killed aid workers and beneficiaries. just a few days earlier, as well as a significant uptick in trauma injuries over the past month.
Meanwhile, flooding due to ongoing rains has threatened water safety, and the arrival of winter brings dropping temperatures and harsher conditions. UN agencies and stakeholders are working to ensure that civilians have adequate protection from the cold, and one NGO is building a field hospital to shorten ambulance journeys and reduce pressure on Erbil hospitals.
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Image Source: Photo: WFP/Alexandra Murdoch
Article Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=55884
Saleem is your average ten-year-old boy who likes playing soccer and running around. But three years ago, while his family was fleeing from Mosul, IS fighters caught up to them. They took his father aside and gave him an ultimatum: either convert to Islam immediately or come with them. In order to protect his family, Saleem’s father chose to leave his loved ones. No one has seen or heard from him since.
“They took his father aside and gave him an ultimatum: either convert to Islam immediately or come with them.”
On Tuesday, December 13, GAiN’s DART (Disaster Assistance and Response Team) members arrived on location near Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan to distribute emergency relief to IDPs (Internally Displaced People) and refugees, people like Saleem and his family, from Mosul and Baghdad.
The team is distributing more than 1000 mattresses, blankets and pillows to people entering the Debaga refugee camp with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They are also preparing to distribute food packages in Al-Karma and Al-Amal within the next few days.
Since October 17, 90,100 people have been displaced from Mosul and have fled to Erbil and Ankawa with the need for food, water and non-food essentials, such as warm clothes and heaters to get through the cold Iraqi winter.
Team members attended a women’s meeting with a local partner at an “improvised container church” outside of Erbil. About 60 women gathered to hear from a psychologist, who has worked with refugees for years, on dealing with suffering and pain. The psychologist not only spoke on scientific matters, but also shared her personal story about finding hope in Jesus. There, team members helped distribute Christmas gifts in the form of cookies, bringing a bit of light and normalcy to a dark situation.
As of now, the end is nowhere in sight. There is still a great need for daily essentials (food, water, shelter and clothing) and the urgency of the needs has only intensified, as winter has arrived.
While Canadians experience cold winters, those in Iraq without shelter and proper clothing are at great risk. Providing fuel for heating, blankets and heaters are a high priority, as more than half of people displaced are children under 18-years-old.
Rick from the Netherlands was in Erbil in 2014 to distribute relief in refugee camps. Upon his return, he made a hopeful observation:
“Two years ago the whole city was crowded with improvised refugee camps. In almost every school building, park or church you could find a refugee camp. By now, a lot of these camps are gone. People have found shelter in houses or the refugee camps are transformed to long-term facilities. Tents are replaced by containers and in the unfinished buildings there are apartments built in. It still doesn’t meet my conditions for having a decent life, but it is intriguing to see how people are able to fall down four times, but stand up five. Even coming from the most miserable circumstances people manage to make the best out of their lives.”
“…it is intriguing to see how people are able to fall down four times, but stand up five. Even coming from the most miserable circumstances people manage to make the best out of their lives.”
We still have matching funds available up to the end of the year, which doubles every gift given, and our plan is to continue working with our local partner into the New Year.
IF YOU WANT TO GET INVOLVED WITH OUR RELIEF WORK IN IRAQ, CLICK HERE.
*Name changed for safety reasons.
“I’m still in shock; the situation was very, very, very bad,” Simon* told me, the day after their first visit to Debaga Camp at the end of July. “Yesterday I was taking photos, interviewing people, and crying. I had heard about the situation, but didn’t imagine it was so terrible.”
A Christian IDP from Mosul, Simon is no stranger to the trauma of imposed flight from a feared “enemy”, the harsh new realities you’re forced to confront along the way, and the longer term harsh reality awaiting you once you arrive at relative safety. But even he was at a loss for words to describe his experience at Debaga Camp.
The majority, if not all, of these families are Muslims displaced from their towns and villages as a result of the military offensive as the Iraqi army coalition continues to make progress in its fight to remove ISIS from Iraq, and specifically its stronghold in Mosul.
Debaga Camp, located on the edge of the Kurdistan Region (an autonomous region of Iraq, significantly more stable and secure than the rest of Iraq), was originally built in late 2015 and hosted about 3,300 people, a number that has increased tenfold. At the end of July, the registered IDPS numbered over 29,000. As of late October, Debaga is host to over 32,000 individuals, with over 58,000 having passed through the camp since March.
“I’ve never seen people so desperate for food—‘Just give me one!’,” said Simon. “We were distributing materials (water, ice, fruit, bread, baby food) and they didn’t run out, we just kept distributing…like the loaves and fish! We need God always—He’s providing people, connections, He’s doing everything.”
The population of Debaga Camp has exploded over the past several months, placing it far above capacity and forcing a second and third location to be hastily constructed. Resources—water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter, food—are scarce, but organizations are doing their best to provide these basic necessities to people within the first hours of their arrival.
Our partner on the ground was able to take responsibility for a section of the camp, and distributed blankets, the nutritious dried soup mix and dried fruit donated by Fraser Valley Gleaners (which is GAiN’s partner) to 5000 families.
The blankets were crucial to these families living exposed to the chill of the desert nights, and the rapidly approaching chill and wet of winter. The soup mix and dried fruit were a great boost to the limited diet of these persecuted people.
The war in Syria has raged on for over five years, with 4.8 million people fleeing the violence, carrying little more than hope. Thousands of Syrians have made the journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece.
In June 2016, GAiN Netherlands transported five pallets of Fraser Valley Gleaners’ dried soup mix to Thessaloniki in Greece. In Thessaloniki, GAiN Netherlands works in partnership with the Apostolic church, caring for 1,500 Syrian refugees.
GAiN offices around the world seek to come alongside these suffering people and demonstrate the love of God, in word and deed, from Ukraine to Paraguay, to the refugee camps in Serbia and Greece, and to the IDP camps in Iraq. Without
the partnership and generosity of Fraser Valley Gleaners, thousands of refugees and displaced people would continue to be need of healthy sustenance.
On behalf of the refugees and displaced people, THANK YOU to all the volunteers, staff and leadership at Fraser Valley Gleaners.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT OUR RELIEF WORK IN IRAQ, CLICK HERE.
This letter is to update you on the situation in Mosul, Iraq since the battle to liberate Mosul began on October 17th.
We have been able to provide much-needed help for the Iraqi people in need, thanks to donors like you.
From November 17-22, GAiN sent an assessment team to Iraq. During their time in country, they witnessed devastating sights and experienced horrifying sounds and smells.
Along with the over three million displaced Iraqis since 2014, the recently liberated town of Qaraqosh (eight kilometers from Mosul) was also devastated. Explosives and fire destroyed every single private home, the infrastructure was intentionally abolished and every one of the ten churches there…obliterated. Deliberate attacks of Christian faith were evident as crosses atop churches were smashed, Christian literature burned and graffiti tagging the churches with phrases like “we love death as you love life” and “Christianity has ended here.”
“Qaraqosh is reminiscent of the 2010 earthquake destruction in Haiti except this was entirely man-made and evil,” shares one of the team members.
Our staff visited two new camps holding over 100,000 people and there they were able to distribute humanitarian aid consisting of rice, baby cereal, and winter clothing.
However, the need is still overwhelming and very real as witnessed first-hand by the staff. And, as the devastation continues to grow, the need grows also.
We have expanded our relief programs with the local partners on the ground to provide further help through its Disaster Assistance and Response Team (DART).
A preliminary plan has been put into action. With the onset of winter, this plan addresses several basic human needs ranging from providing water, food, warm clothing and hygiene packets.
We urge you to help us, bring aid to the thousands who have been devastated and traumatized by this horrific attack and restore hope to them by demonstrating God’s love during this Christmas season.
YOUR GIFT TODAY WILL BE DOUBLED BY A DONOR MATCH!
10 November 2016 – The United Nations humanitarian envoy for Syria today urged actions to stave off the threat of mass hunger in eastern Aleppo before the arrival of winter that he fears could be “a real killer” for a quarter of a million people trapped there.
“The fifth war winter is starting in Syria. There is no doubt it will be the worst in this cruel war, and I fear it will be a real killer in too many places,” Jan Egeland, Special Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told reporters in Geneva.
“Some of the areas are freezing cold, horrible conditions, and people will be in need of digging themselves down in the ground in extreme cases,” he said, explaining that humanitarian convoys are being blocked physically or administratively from reaching them, or they cannot depart because of crossfire or insecurity.
He said that the last time eastern Aleppo was reached with significant humanitarian supplies was the beginning of July and reports imply that the last food rations are being distributed now. “There will not be more to distribute next week,” he said.
Mr. Egeland said that the UN put forward a humanitarian initiative last week, which has been translated into Arabic and presented to the negotiating parties, including Russia, the Syrian Government and the armed opposition groups.
He said that the initiative calls for four actions to save the people in eastern Aleppo: distribution of medical supplies to the medical facilities; medical evacuations for the estimated 300 or so patients, together with their families; delivery of food and other urgent humanitarian relief supplies; and dispatch of more personnel to provide medical relief.
“None of the four elements are conditional on the others,” he said.
“Having heard back from the [humanitarian] taskforce today, we are hopeful that both sides will, since the situation is so horrendous as it is, grant us the opportunity to both come with supplies into east Aleppo, and evacuate wounded and others out of east Aleppo,” he said.
The International Syria Support Group (ISSG) has established the respective taskforces on humanitarian aid delivery and a wider ceasefire. They have been meeting separately since early this year on a way forward in the crisis. Russia and the United States are the co-chairs of the taskforces and the ISSG, which also comprises the UN, the Arab League, the European Union and 16 other countries.
“I do not think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo,” he said. “I do believe we will be able to avert mass hunger this winter.”
There are also hardships in western Aleppo, which can still be reached with aid, he said, warning that civilians there are dying every single week from the continued fighting.
Mr. Egeland also noted that the situation has not gotten better in the other besieged areas.
As for Madaya, Zabadani, Foah and Kafraya under the ‘Four Towns Agreement,’ all relief into these areas and medical evacuations out have been paralyzed because of the “conditioning” between Iran and Ahrar al-Sham.
“I have not seen a place where there has been so much politicization, manipulation of aid, as we have seen in Syria in recent months. It has to stop,” he said.