24 July 2015 – Three months after the first of the devastating earthquakes that hit Nepal, hundreds of thousands of survivors continue to require and rely on urgent humanitarian assistance, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the recovering country said today.
“The emergency is not over yet,” warned Jamie McGoldrick, the Humanitarian Coordinator in Nepal. “As long as humanitarian needs persist, relief agencies will continue to support the Government in addressing these vulnerabilities and ensuring the survival of communities affected.”
The cold and damp monsoon weather exposes those affected to further hazards and, together with customs delays, adds to the challenges aid agencies tackle daily. Shelter, food and livelihoods support, water and sanitation, medical and psychosocial care, and protection remain top priorities, he said.
In the last three months, the humanitarian community provided shelter assistance to 340,000 families, distributed food to over 2 million people and provided safe drinking water to some 2.5 million survivors in 14 most-affected districts, points out a press release issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Hundreds of thousands of children continue to benefit from education and psychosocial support. Almost all of health facilities also restored use of cash programming, which proved to be indispensable in achieving these goals and overcoming the topography challenge.
“I am heartened and encouraged by the dedication of the responders: the Government, the many volunteers, my colleagues. Together, we achieved a lot,” stated Mr. McGoldrick. “But we must continue.”
Basic shelter will continue to be provided to families who lost their homes, as more-durable shelter solutions are sought and implemented, underscore the press release. Aid agencies aim to assist more than 1.4 million people with food and another 1 million people with livelihoods support, and to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to 2.5 million people.
Medical camp kits will continue to replace damaged health infrastructure and temporary learning spaces are intended for additional 270,000 children. The humanitarian community is also planning ahead, to ensure the most vulnerable are assisted beyond the monsoon and prepared to survive through the harsh and cold wintery conditions.
“We cannot fail the most vulnerable communities, people who count on us more than ever with the monsoon season underway and the winter fast-approaching” stressed Mr. McGoldrick. “The humanitarian community can and will deliver on its commitments, provided that we receive the right support.”
To date, only $210 million, or 50 per cent, were received against the $422 million humanitarian appeal. An additional $222 million in support to post-earthquakes relief was provided directly to the Government of Nepal on a bilateral and in-kind basis.
GAIN IS STILL PROVIDING AID TO PEOPLE IN NEPAL. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR EFFORTS, CLICK HERE.
23 July 2015 – Syria’s food production in 2015 remains at 40 per cent below its pre-crisis levels, impacting the price of bread, which has spiralled by 87 per cent, and shrinking poultry production by half, according to a United Nations agency report released today that warns that “the risk of irreversible damage to the children is real, with tragic future consequences.”
“The evidence is clear: almost five years of conflict have destroyed the Syrian economy and the people’s ability to buy essentials like the food they need to survive,” said Arif Husain, chief economist of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in their special joint report based on a crop and food security assessment mission to Syria that the 2015 wheat crop is expected to be better than the 2014 drought stricken harvest, but is still 40 per cent lower than pre-conflict production levels and “will not lead to significant improvements in the overall household food security situation.”
Some 9.8 million people in Syria are food insecure, with 6.8 million of these “severely” food insecure – a level of need that requires external food assistance, according to the report, which noted that since January this year alone, more than half a million people have been displaced.
“Although Syria’s current harvest is better than expected due to abundant rains, the country’s agriculture sector remains decimated by the conflict. Urgent donor support is needed to ensure farmers can meet the upcoming cereal planting season, beginning in October,” said Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO’s Emergency and Rehabilitation Division.
The report said agricultural production continues to be impeded by shortages of fuel, farm labour and agricultural inputs, including seeds and fertilizers; high input costs and unreliable quality; as well as damages to irrigation systems and farming equipment.
Livestock production is also gravely affected by the conflict, the agencies said.
“The sector, once a major contributor to Syria’s domestic economy and to its external trade, has seen reductions of 30 per cent in cattle and 40 per cent in sheep and goats, while poultry, usually the most affordable source of protein in people’s diets has shrunk by 50 per cent,” according to the report. “The report also noted that the country’s veterinary service is rapidly running out of vaccines and routine drugs.”
And after being relatively stable in 2014, food prices began increasing sharply in early 2015 in the wake of lower government subsidies and exchange rate depreciation, the report noted.
“Critically, the price of bread has spiralled in the past year, increasing by up to 87 per cent in public bakeries,” it said.
The report said families were found to be spending more than half of their incomes on food and in some places such as Sweida, Aleppo and Hama this share is higher and has jumped to almost 80 per cent in Dara’a, one of the areas which have witnessed some of the most intensive fighting.
While an end to the conflict remains the main precondition for ensuring that people in Syria have adequate access to food, the FAO-WFP report recommends that in order to strengthen the resilience of affected communities, the establishment of village-based private seed production and distribution centres, promoting backyard vegetable and poultry production through distribution of improved seeds and chicks, as well as providing livestock vaccines and veterinary drugs.
“We worry about the continued displacement and its impact particularly on women and children,” said the WFP economist, Mr. Husain. “The risk of irreversible damage to the children is real, with tragic future consequences if this conflict lasts much longer.”
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13 July 2015 – Syrian children are becoming increasingly vulnerable to water borne illnesses amid peaking summer temperatures and dwindling supplies of safe water, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today.
“The situation is alarming particularly for children who are susceptible to water borne diseases,” Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s Representative in Syria reported in a press release. “With the crisis now in its fifth year, water has become even more scarce and unsafe, and poor hygiene conditions especially among the displaced communities are putting more children at severe risk.”
Since the beginning of 2015, said the UN agency, Syria has reported 105,886 cases of acute diarrhoea while also registering a sharp increase of Hepatitis A cases.
The situation is particularly dramatic in Deir-Ez-Zour, a city not far from Syria’s border with Iraq, where raw sewage has reportedly contaminated the Euphrates River from which the local population receives its water. As a result, UNICEF added, some 1,144 of typhoid cases have been reported.
“Since the beginning of the crisis, we’ve been working with a range of partners to support the vital water infrastructure on which some 15 million people in Syria depend,” Ms. Singer continued. “This includes drilling and equipping wells as alternative sources of water as well as supporting the local production and procurement of water treatment supplies.”
The conditions in Syria have steadily been deteriorating since the outbreak of the country’s conflict in March 2011.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has cautioned that some 12 million people in the Middle Eastern country today remain in need of humanitarian assistance – a twelve-fold increase since 2011. 7.6 million people have been displaced by the conflict and another 4.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in hard to reach and besieged locations.
The humanitarian impact of the crisis is only further compounded by funding shortfalls which has seen wholesale cuts to the UN’s delivery of humanitarian aid – from food assistance to lifesaving health services.
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9 July 2015 – The exodus spawned by the four-year long Syrian conflict has now become the United Nations refugee agency’s largest crisis in almost a quarter of a century and risks deteriorating even further as fighting in the country shows no sign of abating.
In a news release issued earlier today, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed the latest figures received from the field indicating that more than 4 million Syrian refugees have fled the Middle Eastern nation since hostilities began there in March 2011.
“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” lamented UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “It is a population that deserves the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into abject poverty.”
As it reaches the mid-point of its fifth year, the Syrian civil war has generated a steady outflow of refugees into neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, burdening those countries’ infrastructures and leading to overcrowded settlements where many refugees struggle amid high unemployment and precarious services.
According to the latest data available, Turkey alone is host to over 1,800,000 registered Syrian refugees – more than any other in the world – with about 259,000 living in 23 camps set up and managed by the Government.
In addition, the numbers are only slated to increase amid intensified fighting across Syria, the UN refugee agency noted. Today’s 4 million milestone, in fact, comes barely 10 months since the total of three million was reached.
At the same time, however, life for Syrians in exile is becoming increasingly tough. The UN agency explained that some 86 per cent of refugees outside Jordanian resettlement camps live below the poverty line. In Lebanon, 55 per cent of refugees live in shelters considered to be “sub-standard.”
Meanwhile, in a recent report from the ground, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) similarly warned that as the Syrian crisis has dramatically reduced family livelihood opportunities and impoverished millions of households in the region, children have been steadily pushed into the job market and are now being widely employed in harmful working conditions, risking serious damage to their health and wellbeing.
“Worsening conditions are driving growing numbers towards Europe and further afield, but the overwhelming majority remain in the region,” Mr. Guterres continued. “We cannot afford to let them and the communities hosting them slide further into desperation.”
While the conflict continues to push a steady outflow of Syrians across the region, the conditions of those trapped inside the country’s besieged cities remains equally dire.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has cautioned that some 12 million people in the Middle Eastern country today remain in need of humanitarian assistance – a twelve-fold increase since 2011. 7.6 million people have been displaced by the conflict and another 4.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in hard to reach and besieged locations.
The humanitarian impact of the crisis is only further compounded by funding shortfalls which has seen wholesale cuts to the UN’s delivery of humanitarian aid – from food assistance to lifesaving health services.
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