Posts Tagged ‘UN’

UN sends food aid to thousands displaced in Dem. Rep. of Congo

Friday, January 1st, 2010

The United Nations is rushing food to thousands of displaced Congolese in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where tribal clashes have driven 130,000 people from their homes.

“Because of ongoing clashes in the area where these people live, it has been difficult to get food assistance to those who need it most,” UN World Food Program (WFP) Country Director Abdou Dieng said, noting that the food distributions would be widened if security conditions improved.

Convoys carrying 50 metric tons of food escorted by peacekeepers from the UN mission in DRC (MONUC) left Gemena in Equateur Province yesterday for the two distribution sites in Bozene and Boyazala, where more than 6,000 displaced people will receive month-long rations of maize, beans, vegetable oil and salt, to be distributed by AVEP, a Congolese non-governmental organization (NGO).
(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

UN official visits Sri Lanka camps for displaced people

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

The top United Nations humanitarian official kicked off his visit to Sri Lanka yesterday with a stop at camps housing some of the civilians uprooted during the country’s decades-long conflict to see what progress has been made in terms of releases and the remaining problems.

The three-day visit is the fourth to the country this year for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who has raised the issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) with officials on several occasions.

There were more than 270,000 displaced people staying in closed camps after the conflict between the Government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended in May. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that about 163,000 are still there.

The residents in the camps in Jaffna that Mr. Holmes visited continue to suffer from a lack of freedom of movement and are hoping for an early return to their homes or release from the camp, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

UN’s Ban warns of dangers of losing cultural differences as world grows closer

Monday, November 16th, 2009

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today cautioned against the erosion of diversity and rise of discrimination as the forces of globalization and technology bring disparate communities across the world closer together, in a message marking the International Day for Tolerance.

In his message for the Day, observed annually on November 16, Mr. Ban said that Internet chatrooms and social networking sites enable us to connect with more people than we can hope to meet.
(more…)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Video: UN faces huge task in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

A report from Jason Maloney of The Bureau for International Reporting about the state of U.N. peackeeping operations in Congo.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Jesuit Refugee Service | No Comments »

UN refugee chief outraged at killing of staffer in Pakistan

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

The head of the United Nations refugee agency voiced his outrage at the shooting death of a staff member at a camp outside the north-west Pakistani town of Peshawar today.

The murder of Zill-e Usman, a 59-year-old Pakistani national who had served with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since 1984, is the third killing of the agency’s staff in the country in the past six months.

“There is no justification for attacks on humanitarian workers dedicated to the protection and care of the most vulnerable people,” said High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.
(more…)

Tags: , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »