'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
With fear etched on their faces, clearly still suffering from the trauma of a rough by boat across the Aegean, an Afghan family arrives in Lesvos, Greece (2015). Photo credit: UNHCR/Giles Duley
Hardly a statement could have portrayed more accurately the current wave of hatred invading humankind, like the one made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.
21 June 2016 – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has released its 2015 annual report, articulating its response to the humanitarian challenges and human suffering, in all corners of the world that have overstretched the UN relief arm.
Humanitarian partners delivering aid to 71,000 people in Houla, rural Homs in Syria. Photo: UNOCHA Syria
The report recalls the humanitarian response and the work undertaken by OCHA in five level-three emergencies in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, as well as in two sudden onset natural disasters in Nepal and Vanuatu, many protracted crises, including the complex mixture of violence and environmental degradation in the Lake Chad Basin that continued to require intensive advocacy, coordination and resource mobilization.
A girl holds a sign saying the TPP means Transferring Fully our Powers, during a protest against the trade agreement in Santiago, Chile. Credit: Courtesy of “A Better Chile without TPP”
The free trade agreement, which was signed in New Zealand on Feb. 4, is now pending parliamentary approval in the 12 countries of the bloc, in a process led by Malaysia. Chile, Mexico and Peru are the three Latin American partners.
GENEVA (UNHCR)* – With tens of thousands of civilians pouring out of the embattled Iraqi city of Falluja in recent days, US$17.5 million is urgently needed to meet their immediate needs, the UN Refugee Agency on 21 June 2016 said.
Families from Falluja, Iraq, continue to flee from the city as fighting continues. © UNHCR/Anmar Qusay
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More than 85,000 people have fled Falluja and the surrounding area since a government military offensive to retake the city from extremists began a month ago, on May 23.
About 60,000 of these fled over a period of just three days last week, between 15 to 18 June. Thousands more could still be planning to leave the city, UNHCR spokeswoman Ariane Rummery told a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday (June 21).
Indigenous Asheninka activist Diana Rios (centre) from the Amazon village of Saweto, Peru is the daughter of slain activist Jorge Rios who was murdered by illegal loggers in September 2014. Credit: Lyndal Rowlands / IPS.
The report, On Dangerous Ground, found that in 2015, 185 people were killed defending the environment across 16 countries, a 59 percent increase from 2014.
The Gaza Strip is a war-ravaged, poverty-stricken area, locked into 365 square kilometers and living under a tight illegal blockade on land, air a sea, which entered its tenth year in June 2016.
Photo: UNRWA
The blockade, in addition to recurrent armed violence and conflict, today remains the principle causes of the socio-economic and psychosocial crisis in Gaza.
The restrictions on movement of people and goods continue to collectively punish the civilian population, affecting every aspect of life in Gaza, undermining the local economy and threatening the enjoyment of most human rights, in clear violation of Israel’s legal obligations under international law.
20 June 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – The 12 June 2016 exchange of artillery fire along the heavily militarized frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea could be just one of the periodic skirmishes between the two States. However, it could be the first signs of a flare up of violence. There have been calls from the United Nations and African Union officials for “restraint” but as yet no steps for real conflict resolution.
**This image is a map derived from a United Nations map. | User: Jeroen (talk | contribs) | Public Domain | Wikimedia Commons.
The Imburi are spirits that are said to inhabit the forests of Gabon in Equatorial Africa and who cry out for those who can hear them at times of impending violence or danger.
21 June 2016 – Vast swathes of war-torn Yemen – 19 out of 22 governorates – are facing severe food insecurity, and the situation within affected areas is likely to deteriorate if conflict persists, according to a new assessment by the United Nations and partners.
At least 7 million people across Yemen are living under emergency levels of food insecurity. A further 7.1 million people are in a state of crisis, according to the latest assessment. Photo: WFP/Asmaa Waguih
The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis confirms that over half the country’s population is living in ‘emergency’ or ‘crisis’ levels of food insecurity, with some governorates seeing as much as 70 per cent of their population struggling to feed themselves.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 