'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — The number of people experiencing catastrophic hunger has surged more than twofold in 2024, due largely to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, according to new figures released by the UN on Thursday [].
PHOTO CREDIT: Mathilde Vu/NRC
3 September 2024 (NRC)* — “As the heads of humanitarian organisations operating in Sudan, we urgently call on the international community to address the immense hunger crisis within the country.
“We cannot be clearer: Sudan is experiencing a starvation crisis of historic proportions. And yet, the silence is deafening. People are dying of hunger, every day, and yet the focus remains on semantic debates and legal definitions.
Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, 2 September 2024 (WMO)* — Africa bears an exceptionally heavy burden from climate change and disproportionately high costs for essential climate adaptation. On average, African countries are losing 2-5% of GDP and many are diverting up to 9% of their budgets responding to climate extremes.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adaptation is estimated to range from US$ 30-50 billion annually over the next decade, or 2-3% of the region’s Gross Domestic Product, says the WMO State of the Climate in Africa 2023 report.
Public Outcry Against ‘The Goat Life’ which Depicts Serious Rights Violations
3 September 2024 — This month, Netflix released “The Goat Life,” a movie centered on the experiences of an Indian migrant worker, Najeeb Muhammed, who worked in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s and, after being stranded in the desert, was forced to work as a goat herder.
It is based on the 2008 bestselling book, “Goat Days,” which was written by another migrant worker and author under the pen name Benyamin.
(UN News)* — Israeli forces continue to employ “lethal war-like tactics” in the West Bank, including airstrikes, with people being killed, injured and displaced, the UN Spokesperson said on Tuesday [].
GENEVA, 2 September 2024 (UN Human Rights)* – A UN independent expert warned today that Israel’s intensification of its military assault against the northern West Bank marks a dangerous escalation of grave violence and human rights violations committed by Israel against the Palestinian people since October 7, 2023.
“Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole,” warned Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
Credit: UNRWA
Inspite of continual pleas from the weak Biden-Harris-Blinken White House to stop bombing civilians in Gaza, Israel refuses to end the carnage. What’s going on? As usual in the Middle East, the obvious plot has at least one hidden sub-plot.
Text: Kristine Grønhaug. Photo/video: Richard Ashton. Design: Tove Skjeflo
One day last year, when 12-year-old Salwa was at the market in her hometown in Sudan, the dark shadow of war came over her. And when, a few weeks later, her neighbours’ house was bombed and the children who lived there were killed, she fled.
.
.
.
.
Now she is in a transit centre in South Sudan.
But her heart is still beating.
And beating.
()* — Spotlighting crises roiling parts of eastern Africa, the UN deputy chief concluded a regional visit in Adré, Chad, on Friday [], calling for global solidarity to tackle famine in Sudan, flooding and mass displacement while ensuring free-flowing aid for millions trapped in war zones and those fleeing for their lives.
Yemen: Needs grow for millions displaced amid catastrophic flooding and prolonged humanitarian emergency
Internally displaced people (IDPs) face dire conditions at an IDP site in Sa’ada city, Yemen, after heavy rains flooded their makeshift shelters. © UNHCR/YDF
30 August 2024 (UNHCR)* — UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is warning that millions of displaced Yemenis face worsening conditions as Yemen’s prolonged crisis deepens. This is according to the findings of a latest UNHCR assessment.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 