Press releases

After rushing in a relief team to help deliver the most basic emergency supplies – drinking water, shoes, clothes, Fala Lilii (mats), sleeping bags and boxes of tinned fish – we are ramping up our response in Samoa.

International aid agency Oxfam today began tankering clean water into Padang, as part of the relief effort for the many people affected by last Wednesday’s 7.6 magnitude earthquake. Providing clean water is an immediate priority.

Additional aid team arrive in Padang, Sumatra to assist Oxfam partners. Vital stocks of emergency aid have been dispatched to the quake zone in Sumatra, Indonesia today (3 October 2009).

Typhoon Parma struck the Philippines on Saturday. The storm is the country's second in eight days. The capital, Manila, escaped the worst of the storm, but the north has been harder hit. Manila has been experiencing heavy rainfall since Friday evening.

Oxfam predicts more widespread destruction caused by Typhoon Ketsana and a higher demand for immediate humanitarian assistance in Cambodia.

International agency Oxfam’s emergency team is at work in Samoa today responding to urgent needs. The immediate focus is to ensure survivors in remote rural areas have clean water and basic sanitation.

International agency Oxfam is sending an emergency response team to Samoa today to help meet the urgent needs of people affected by the yesterday’s tsunami.

Millions of people forced to flee the fighting in Pakistan’s Swat Valley struggled to receive vital aid because the international community provided too little help, too late, according to a report released today by international aid agency Oxfam.

Oxfam-funded local organizations in West Sumatra are on aid missions in the earthquake-hit area ready to distribute 2,400 sheets of tarpaulins for
emergency shelter, hygiene kits and clothing said the international agency today.

The World Bank’s new assessment on the scale of finance needed to help developing countries adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change – $75-100bn per year on average from 2010-2050 – is a vital and timely contribution to the current climate negotiations under way in Bangkok.

Oxfam will send an 11-strong team of aid experts to the storm-hit province of Kon Tum in central Vietnam, hit by typhoon Ketsana last night. They will carry out an assessment of needs and start initial response work immediately.

Manila, Philippines — International aid agency Oxfam today urged the Philippine government to look at environmental sanitation and safe water as the two key needs of women, men and children affected by Typhoon Ketsana.

Oxfam is expecting to send emergency staff to Apia , Western Samoa , within 24 hours to assess the situation on the ground, and identify the most urgent needs for people displaced following the 8.3 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Samoa.

More than 23 million people are being pushed towards severe hunger and destitution across East Africa, international aid agency Oxfam warned today, as it launched an emergency appeal to raise $15 million.

International aid agency Oxfam is sending in teams to the flooded areas in the Philippines and gearing up its aid response. It has suspended its on-going long-term development programme work in the Philippines in order to mobilise its resources for the humanitarian operation.

The worst flooding the Philippines has seen in decades highlights the urgent need for US leadership to push UN climate change negotiations in Bangkok forward to help ensure the best chance of securing a global climate treaty in Copenhagen.

The G20 should take urgent action to protect poor countries from economic crisis that is forcing 100 people-a-minute into poverty, Oxfam said today. Developing countries across the globe are struggling to respond to the global recession.

New York - Millions were thrown a lifeline at special session at the United Nations today, when world leaders unveiled a plan for free health care in poor countries.

International aid organization Oxfam welcomed encouraging remarks made by heads of state at the UN Summit on Climate Change, but cautioned that it remains to be seen if they will be translated into a fair, ambitious and binding global treaty in Copenhagen this December.

International aid agency Oxfam today warned that the conflict-driven emergency in Yemen could soon ignite into a full-blown humanitarian crisis unless immediate action is taken to stop the fighting between government forces and Houthi rebels in the north of the country.