Updated: World rushes aid to tsunami-hit Tonga as drinking water, food runs short
Updated 11:30pm (AEDT)Wellington, New Zealand/Sydney, AustraliaReuters More ships and aircraft carrying aid are due to arrive in Tonga in coming days as the international community responds to calls for urgent assistance from the Pacific island nation following a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami. Personnel wearing personal protection equipment, and a load of humanitarian relief supplies […]
First aid finally reaches Tonga as telephone lines partially restored
Reuters The first aircraft carrying humanitarian supplies arrived in Tonga on Thursday, five days after the South Pacific island nation was hit by a volcanic eruption and tsunami that devastated communities and spoiled most of its drinking water. A Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules landed in Tonga’s Fua’amotu International Airport, a defence spokesperson […]
As conflict stalks Burkina Faso borderlands, hunger spreads
Dori, Burkina FasoReuters Suspended from scales in a bucket, nine-month-old Sakinatou Amadou gripped the sides of her makeshift container as a nurse at a small clinic in northern Burkina Faso checked on her recovery from malnutrition. Sakinatou’s mother is dead and she is being raised in Dori, a trading hub near the Niger border, by […]
Red Cross official warns of “serious problems” with remote Bangladesh island housing Rohingya refugees
Reuters A senior Red Cross official warned that “serious problems” remain with a remote island off southern Bangladesh housing Rohingya refugees, as officials prepared to ship thousands more people there this week. Since last December, Bangladesh has moved about 19,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a persecuted mostly Muslim minority from Myanmar, to the island of […]
Red Cross warns aid groups not enough to stave off Afghan humanitarian crisis
Dubai, United Arab EmiratesReuters The Red Cross on Friday urged the international community to engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, saying that aid groups on their own would be unable to stave off a humanitarian crisis. Afghanistan has been plunged into crisis by the abrupt end of billions of dollars in foreign assistance following the […]
In Kabul clinic, Taliban and the soldiers they fought confront wounds of war
Kabul, AfghanistanReuters Former Taliban fighter Mohammad Ishaq, who spent years battling Western troops and local forces in Afghanistan, lost his leg in combat and is now learning to walk with a new limb. Standing near him at a Kabul clinic is one of the soldiers he defeated. In the Red Cross Hospital in Kabul, Ishaq […]
Wildfires: “a new part of our reality” in warming Europe
Thomson Reuters Foundation Wildfires are burning across southern Europe, a new fact of life in fast-warming Europe, with eight dead in Turkey, 100-plus fires in Greece and mass evacuations across Italy. For the woman leading the Red Cross in Europe, which has been spearheading rescue efforts, the spate of summer wildfires – as well as floods […]
At least 15 found dead, hundreds missing, after Bangladesh Rohingya camp blaze
Cox’s Bazar, BangladeshAP Rescuers recovered at least 15 charred bodies from a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh after a devastating fire that destroyed thousands of shelters, officials said Tuesday. At least 400 people were still missing and around 560 were injured by the fire, according to Louise Donovan, a spokesperson for the United Nations’ […]
Vaccine barriers: Insecurity, suspicion will mar COVID-19 inoculation programs in Africa war zones
NITA BHALLA and MOHAMMED OMER, writing for Thomson Reuters Foundation, report on the barriers to distributing COVID-19 vaccines in war-torn parts of Africa…
Red Cross to help poor countries with vaccines
Geneva, SwitzerlandAP A top international Red Cross organisation has announced a 100-million Swiss franc ($US110 million) plan to help support the immunisation of 500 million people worldwide against COVID-19 amid concerns about vast inequalities in the rollout of coronavirus vaccines between rich and poor countries. Seniors wait to be vaccinated with China’s Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 […]