(UN News)* — More than two days of armed violence at the Ein El Hilweh Palestine Refugee camp in southern Lebanon continues to impact civilians, including children, a senior UN official in the country said on Monday [].
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Ziad Taleb | United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Headquarter in Gaza
Eleven people were killed and another 40 were injured, including a staff member with the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said Dorothee Klaus, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, citing reports.
Two schools operated by the agency sustained damage, and more than 2,000 people were forced to flee in search of safety.
MALAKAL, South Sudan, 24 July 2023 (UNFPA)* – “My neighbour Rose* travelled with me to Renk, but her three daughters stayed behind in Khartoum. Later she learned they had been gang raped,” said Martha.*
Martha had recently arrived in the port of Malakal, a key transit point for those fleeing the violence in Sudan and crossing into South Sudan. More than 170,000 returnees and refugees have so far arrived in Malakal since the conflict erupted on 15 April, a number that will only increase if the crisis continues.
LILONGWE, 24 July 2023 (WFP)* –The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to cut assistance to more than 51,000 vulnerable refugees by 50 percent as hunger levels deepen at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi.
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Photo: WFP/Badre Bahaji
The refugees, who are mainly from the Great Lakes region, receive monthly WFP cash assistance at the camp – where they face several challenges, including insufficient shelter and inadequate health, water, and sanitation services.
(UN News)* — Civilians fleeing attacks by extremist groups in Burkina Faso must be allowed to shelter in neighbouring countries and not sent back, amid a spike in violence and horrifying rights abuses, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday [].
“We’re urgently appealing for all States to refrain from forcibly returning any individuals originating from the regions in Burkina Faso where there is an ongoing crisis,” said Elizabeth Tan, UNHCR Director of International Protection.
Speaking in Geneva, Ms. Tan highlighted “killings, forced disappearances, torture and kidnappings”, while in several instances, civilians had been targeted and killed, resulting in mass civilian casualties.
An Israeli court has given the go-ahead for the forced eviction of 500 Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev/Naqab region, highlighting the deep discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel face under apartheid, Amnesty International said today [July 28, 2023]. In a judgment issued on 27 July, the Beer’sheva Magistrate’s Court said residents of the village of Ras Jrabah must leave their homes, and vacate the lands where their families have lived for decades, by March 2024. They must also pay a fine of 117,000 NIS (approximately 31,700 USD) to cover legal expenses.
The forced evictions are part of the Israeli authorities’ plans to build a new neighbourhood for the city of Dimona, whose inhabitants are mostly Jewish Israelis. Ras Jrabah’s residents will be relocated to an impoverished and segregated Bedouin town nearby.
(UN News)* — Insecurity and violence increased rapidly in the occupied West Bank over the last month, punctuated by one of the most intensive Israeli military operations in nearly two decades, the Security Council heard on Thursday [].
“This deterioration is taking place alongside ongoing unilateral steps that undermine a two-State solution, the absence of a peace process and the continuing economic challenges facing Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority (PA),” said Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East, briefing ambassadors.
(UN News)* — Nearly 200,000 people were displaced by fighting inside Sudan over the past week, the UN reported on Tuesday [], citing new figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
(UN News)* — Indigenous Peoples have the ancestral wisdom to guide humanity towards a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources, yet they are systematically discriminated against and excluded, UN rights chief Volker Türk warned on Monday [17 July 2023].
He was speaking in Geneva at the annual meeting on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, referencing in-depth conversations he had had in recent months with Indigenous representatives during missions to Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Kenya.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, 17 July 2023 (WFP)* – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to cut the number of people receiving emergency food assistance in Haiti by 25 percent in July, compared to the previous month, due to dwindling funding levels. Tragically, this means 100,000 of the most vulnerable Haitians are forced to get by without any WFP support this month.
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People wait to redeem food vouchers at a WFP distribution point in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince. Photo: WFP/Peyvand Khorsandi
(UN News)* — As conflict continues to rage in Sudan, UN humanitarians expressed alarm on Tuesday [] at a surge in the number of people fleeing across the border to Chad.
From the World Food Programme (WFP), Chad Country Director Pierre Honnorat said that 20,000 people crossed into Chad just last week.
Speaking to journalists via Zoom from the Zabout refugee camp in Goz Beida, Mr. Honnorat described desperate scenes: “We can see that they have suffered, many lost family members, and we don’t even dare ask them, ‘Where are the men?’ The answer from the mothers is often that they were killed. So, you just see many women, many children.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 