UNSC

NGOs call for the UN Security Council to urgently convene and pass a Resolution demanding an immediate and sustained ceasefire following yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting on the risk of conflict-induced famine in Gaza. 

The world spent yearly an estimated $112 billion on arms imports between 2018-2022, even as 9,000 people die each day from hunger driven primarily by conflict. The top five-arms exporters – the USA, Russia, France, China and Germany - which account for over three-quarters of the global arms trade, together sold an estimated $85 billion worth of arms yearly.  

In response to the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip with Israeli airstrikes killing 21 Palestinians, closing key crossings and barring critical supplies from entering Shane Stevenson, Oxfam OPTI Country Director said: “Civilians in Gaza are once again paying the price for the failures of political leaders to negotiate a just solution and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis."

In response to this week’s UN General Assembly Resolution that automatically mandates the UN General Assembly to meet within 10 days in the wake of any UN Security Council veto, Oxfam’s Head of the UN New York Office, Brenda Mofya said,

“While we welcome the renewal of the resolution to allow cross-border aid, we are very concerned that the reduced crossing will limit the provision of clean water, food, shelter and healthcare on which millions of Syrians rely," said Oxfam in Syria’s Country Director Moutaz Adham in response to news that the UN Security Council’s resolution allowing cross-border aid into Syria was renewed but modified.

“As discussions and debating continues in New York for allowing aid into Syria, millions of Syrians who rely on this aid for clean water, food, shelter and healthcare, and who face the increasing threat of COVID-19, lie in the brink," said Oxfam in Syria’s Country Director Moutaz Adham in response to the results of three votes for allowing cross-border aid into Syria which have failed to extend the mandate of the cross border beyond Friday 10 July.

International agency Oxfam appealed to the UK government to ensure that training on international humanitarian and human rights law is prioritized in its dispatch of military advisors to Mali.

A military offensive in northern Mali would have serious humanitarian consequences and requires serious safeguards to be put in place warns a coalition of ten non-governmental organizations today.

Oistein Thorsen, humanitarian campaigner at Oxfam International said:

Oxfam’s aim is that “all women and men in humanitarian crises will be assured both the protection and the assistance they require, regardless of who they are or how they are affected, in a