Libya agreed to open a corridor for food aid and other UN humanitarian supplies to help about 1.2 million people displaced by the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
An agreement was signed Thursday between the Libyan government and UN World Food Program (WFP) in the capital, Tripoli, to guarantee the safe passage of food aid from the US and other donors through Libya to Sudan and Chad.
"This is a Libyan initiative to extend help to the Africans and to help achieve peace and security in Africa," Mohammed Sayala, Libya's deputy foreign minister, told a news conference after the signing ceremony.
John Powell, the WFP deputy executive director, said the first shipment of 450 tonnes of wheat flour from Switzerland is expected to arrive in the Libyan port of Benghazi early next month.
Powell expressed hope that relief aid would reach 1 million displaced Sudanese people next month and 1.5 million additional people in November.
Another 200,000 displaced Sudanese people are living in temporary camps along the border in neighboring Chad.
Meanwhile, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, two top World Health Organization (WHO) officials said that increased funds and supplies were needed to save hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in Darfur from diseases such as cholera, dysentery and malaria.
"People are dying now because they are living in totally unsatisfactory conditions, but too many more could die in the coming weeks unless we prevent the lack of sanitation, malnutrition, shortage of clean water and the coming rains from combining into a recipe for death," WHO Director-general Lee Jong-wook said.
Lee and Hussein Gezairy, the WHO's regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, visited camps and hospitals in southern and western Darfur.
In a press release, Lee and Gezairy said that progress has been achieved in providing relief, particularly healthcare, in the last few weeks, but that health risks could be reduced further with an intensified relief program.
The Darfur crisis has killed more than 30,000 and driven over 1 million people from their homes in what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Foreign governments plus international aid and rights groups accuse the Khartoum government of backing Arab militiamen, known as the Janjaweed, who have carried out looting, destruction and evictions based on ethnicity.
The government has denied the charge.
A ceasefire was signed April 8, but both sides accuse the other of violations.
Sudanese officials and black African rebels fighting the 17-month war were to begin African Union-sponsored talks in Ethiopia on Thursday in a bid to end the conflict.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would make a decision about how the US government would refer to the body of water commonly known as the Persian Gulf when he visits Arab states next week. Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects his hosts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will ask him about the US officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. “They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s
RSS