protección de civiles

Oxfam welcomes the announcement by the Saudi Arabian led  Coalition that Operation Decisive Storm in Yemen has ended, but warns that the work to bring aid to millions of Yemenis is still only beginning. 

In many areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, citizens are still vulnerable to brutal violence from armed groups and in some cases from government, including the police, army and local officials.

Agencies fear recent improvements will be wiped out as the number of severely hungry people will rise by one million in first three months of 2015.

Commenting on the decision for the UN to send more troops to South Sudan, John Watt, Oxfam’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, currently in South Sudan said:

Communities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are being preyed on mercilessly by rebel groups and local militias, as well as their own government’s troops and officials, in a vicious cycle of exploitation and abuse according to a new Oxfam report.

The new escalation in fighting and insecurity along the Kenya-Somalia border risks increasing the suffering for civilians already devastated by drought and conflict, international agency Oxfam said today, three months since famine was announced in Somalia.

The UK government is hosting an international meeting in London on 29 March on Libya.

International military forces must take urgent steps to protect civilians caught up in the escalating conflict as they plan for the handover of responsibility for security to the Afghan government, warned leading aid agencies today.

A coalition of 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations today called on John Holmes, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, to insist that protecting civilians be a top priority of the joint Congolese and Rwandan military operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

President Obama has the opportunity to chart a new course for US policy in Afghanistan by taking the urgent steps needed to reverse the slide into a major humanitarian crisis.