Full Coverage: Emergency relief

25.05.2005 HABARADUWA, Sri Lanka, May 25 (IPS) - In his 68 years, V T Piyasena has never lived through anything like the last five months. He lost a daughter and his son-in-law in the Dec. 26 tsunami, and was left with a partially damaged house.

16.05.2005 The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors yesterday approved a Danube River Enterprise Pollution Reduction Project for the Republic of Serbia. The project will be funded by a grant from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) of US$9.0 million, with expected contributions from beneficiary enterprises, other donors and the Government of Serbia of about US$13 million equivalent.

12.05.2005 Global Giving connects individuals who want to help with projects on the ground that need funding. The new Darfur portal offers a range of opportunities to support projects keeping Darfurians safe and helping to rebuild their lives.

09.05.2005 More than 17,000 people are feared dead as tsunami--tidal waves--provoked by the strongest earthquake in 40 years battered a huge swathe of South Asia Sunday. The International Federation of the Red Cross is seeking support for “one of the largest operations” ever to aid an estimated 500,000 victims in multiple countries, including the Indian Ocean republic of Maldives where at least one of its nearly 2,000 islands is completely under water.

09.05.2005 Tidal waves provoked by the earthquake near the Indonesian island of Sumatra Sunday affected coastal communities from south east Asia to Somalia in the Horn of Africa. Sri Lanka suffered the highest toll with about 13,000 deaths confirmed so far.

09.05.2005 Banda Aceh, the closest region to the epicenter of Sunday’s devastating earthquake is off limits to foreign-based journalists and aid workers--unless they secure special permit from the Indonesian government. Applications for the permits take two weeks to process. International organizations have been shut out of Aceh since May 2003 when the government started a military campaign against the Free Aceh separatist rebels.

09.05.2005

Pondicherry fishing village after the tsunami © M S Swaminathan Research Foundation

Latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the number of people displaced by last weekend’s the tidal waves at five million. Eleven countries across six time zones were affected, including Seychelles, Kenya and Tanzania. More than 80,000 people are confirmed dead, with more than 32,000 occurring in the Indonesian regions of Aceh and north Sumatra. Nearly 30 international organizations are already providing relief services in different communities. The UN launched an initial appeal for $130 million ahead of a much vaster appeal scheduled for January 6.

09.05.2005 "Aceh really is ground zero... there are miles and miles and miles of nothing," said John Budd, Unicef’s communication director in Indonesia. Amidst near total collapse of medical infrastructure and the health system, relief workers fear that untreated injuries and outbreaks of other diseases could cause a second wave of mass deaths in this region where 79, 940 lives have already been lost to the deadly tsunamis.

09.05.2005 The downside of this year's incredible outpouring of generosity to the tsunami-affected countries and Sudan is beginning to emerge. Funding for other emergencies around the world is only 9% of what's needed, warns Refugees International.

05.05.2005 "Somewhere along the line, three million Ethiopians have become a negligible statistic," said Oxfam International's humanitarian program director in Ethiopia Abera Tola Wednesday. Ethiopian and UN appeals--to help the country fight disease, feed its population, and develop its farming productivity to end the cycle of hunger once and for all--have largely fallen on deaf ears, the group said.

03.05.2005 Depuis le début de l’année, le Soudan vacille entre la guerre et la paix. D’une part, le conflit au Darfour dans l’est du pays risque de s’envenimer. Le gouvernement soudanais en dépit des pressions d’une partie de la communauté internationale tergiverse face à une situation qui prend la forme d’un massacre organisé. D’autre part, depuis la signature en janvier de l’accord dit de « Naivasha » entre le gouvernement soudanais et le principal groupe rebelle, l’Armée de libération du peuple du Soudan (SPLA), les Soudanais et le monde entier espèrent une résolution à cette guerre civile qui perdure depuis plus de 30 ans. Ce n’est malheureusement pas la première fois que le Soudan souffle à la fois le chaud et le froid car à plusieurs reprises, des négociations entre les parties belligérantes sont venues près d’aboutir, sans y arriver complètement.