Full Coverage: Emergency relief

30.12.2005 UNITED NATIONS, Dec 30 (OneWorld) - Overwhelmed with the challenges posed by a series of natural disasters that occurred in 2005, United Nations officials responsible for delivering humanitarian aid are urging international donors to get prepared for the next year now.

30.12.2005 Several Kenyan MPs asked President Kibaki to declare the famine in various parts of the country a national disaster.

29.12.2005 After the failure of the end-of-year rains, the lives and livelihoods of thousands of nomadic cattle farmers are at stake in north-east Kenya.

28.12.2005 Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Bashir Ahmed Khan has said that 20,000 quake-related cases settled by the Lok Adalats in 34 days would have taken 22 years normally.

28.12.2005 A plan to send children living in relief camps to schools in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province was put on hold this week, as the children were still too traumatised to enter any building with a solid roof overhead.

27.12.2005 The European Commission has approved a series of humanitarian aid decisions for Africa worth €165 million, with the bulk allocated to ongoing crises in Burundi (€17m), Chad (€13.5m), Comoros (€600,000), Democratic Republic of Congo (€38m), Ivory Coast (€5.2m), Liberia (€16.4m), Madagascar (€500,000), Sudan (€48m), Tanzania (€11.5m) and Uganda (€15m).
* OneWorld's Guide to aid

27.12.2005 Reconstruction in Iran's south-eastern city of Bam is still underway, despite construction of thousands of permanent shelters for survivors of the devastating earthquake that levelled the city exactly two years ago.

27.12.2005 “We are touched by your dedication, warmth and compassion for quake survivors. We salute all of you for doing so much for us. You are sacrificing so much for us,” he said, praising the international faith-based community and NGOs.

27.12.2005 Coastal communities across the Indian Ocean yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami that left 230,000 people dead, with ceremonies of tearful remembrance and hopeful thanksgiving.

26.12.2005 Nalaka Gunawardene argues that governments in disaster-prone areas need stronger partnerships with the media to ensure that information gets rapidly where it is needed during emergencies.

23.12.2005 Over $1 million in emergency medicinal relief are being delivered to Pakistan's devestated Himalayan region, where some three million men, women, and children remain without shelter and in need of medicinal care.

22.12.2005 One year after the tsunami changed their lives, children in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand feel hopeful about the future, while children in Indonesia are recovering at a slower pace, according to a UN Children's Fund survey.

22.12.2005 Two French-Canadian climbers carried tarpaulin sheets and blankets to remote villages in Pakistan previously shut off from aid. They, and twelve other experienced climbers, have now been assigned with finding unreached villages, assessing the villagers' needs, and locating possible helicopter landing sites--hopefully all before winter descends in full force.

20.12.2005 Sitting in his bed in a field hospital, Safir, 3, is coughing heavily, while his mother, Meerjan, gives him water to soothe the outbursts. The reason is pneumonia, say doctors at the field hospital run by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

17.12.2005 The underlying causes of the current food shortage in southern Africa are political and economic, with lack of rain merely the final trigger, charges a development charity.

15.12.2005

© Lutheran World Relief

Lutheran World Relief has received a $640,104 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help nomadic communities in Niger avert food crises through new, innovative approaches that help bring vulnerable populations back from the brink of hunger.

13.12.2005 As the army takes over the relief and rebuilding effort in the Pakistani mountains, people and observers say with increasing pessimism that the transition from a military rule to a democrary seems to be receeding. The army, on the contrary, says that the final decision-making process still rests with the political leaders, an argument that people don't buy.

12.12.2005 Britain has announced additional funding of more than US $12 million to address the growing food needs in drought-stricken Malawi and Zambia.

10.12.2005 A dramatic increase and improvement in the international post-earthquake relief operation is essential to avert a second humanitarian disaster in Pakistan, a leading development charity has warned.
* UNICEF delivers warm clothing kits to children

08.12.2005 As the tsunami anniversary comes close, crises caused by natural disasters continue in Pakistan and many other parts of the world. Taking into account the disasters that took place during the year, UNICEF has said that 2005 has been an unprecedented year of emergencies for children, with an extraordinary series of natural disasters, food crises, and conflicts tearing at the fabric of life for tens of millions of people.