WFP surveys showed an estimated 98% of Afghans are not eating enough, with seven in 10 families resorting to borrowing food, which pushes them deeper into poverty, a spokesperson for the agency told reporters.

The abrupt withdrawal of foreign aid following the Taliban victory in August has left Afghanistan’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse, with prices for food, fuel and other basic staples rising rapidly out of reach for many.

“The spiralling economic crisis, the conflict and drought has meant the average family can now barely cope,” Tomson Phiri told a Geneva briefing. “We have a huge amount to do to stop this crisis from becoming a catastrophe.”

The WFP has provided food assistance to 15 million Afghans so far in 2021, and to seven million in November alone. Next year, it plans to ramp up its assistance to 23 million people across all provinces in Afghanistan.

“We cannot waste any moment,” Phiri said. “Our country director describes the situation as quite dire. She says it’s ‘an avalanche of hunger and destitution’.”

Separately, Nada Al-Nashif, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Afghan families face “severe poverty and hunger” with many pushed into desperate measures, including child labour, early marriage and “even the sale of children”.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghans-face-avalanche-hunger-destitution-un-agency-2021-12-14/?rpc=401&

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United Nations independent experts demanded on Wednesday that the Venezuelan Government take concrete actions to tackle the devastating impact on basic human rights of the country’s economic crisis.

“We are deeply concerned about the spiraling economic crisis, and the effect this has had on people’s ability to subsist from one day to the next”, three UN Special Rapporteurs asserted. “The Government must immediately explain how it intends to support people, many of whom are teetering on the brink of survival”.

Lift sanctions

They acknowledged that while the Government blamed crippling international sanctions for the humanitarian crisis, many of the country’s problems – such as food shortages, hyperinflation, power cuts, and soaring unemployment – preceded the trade restrictions.

“Nevertheless”, they said, “especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States should immediately lift blanket sanctions, which are having a severe impact on the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”

Collapsing health system

The experts also flagged the country’s collapsing health system, pointing out that many hospitals are struggling to care for patients – with no reliable electricity or even running water.

“Hospitals are reporting a shortage of medical supplies, protective equipment and medicine”, they echoed. “Given the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income people in even the wealthiest countries, this is alarming”.

The three experts also pushed the Government to “ensure that people have the support they need to safely practice social distancing”.

Education breakdown

Meanwhile, the education system has lost thousands of teachers, and many children no longer make it school because a scarcity of food at home has left them without the energy to attend or they cannot afford transportation.

“This guarantees the crisis will do lasting damage to the next generation,” the experts spelled out.

Citing UN World Food Programme (WFP) estimates, the independent experts revealed that a third of the population is food insecure.

Retaliation and detentions

Moreover, they were alarmed by reports that journalists, lawyers, and medical workers have faced retaliation and even been detained for raising concerns about conditions in the country.

Anyone arbitrarily detained should be released immediately, and the Government should investigate these allegations, they underscored.

“There is no doubt that the Government is facing numerous challenges right now, but human rights cannot be put on hold”, they stressed.

“Even at a time like this, the Government still has an obligation to protect people’s basic rights”, concluded the Special Rapporteurs

The UN experts

The three UN experts are Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; Léo Heller, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation; and Kombou Boly Barry, Special Rapporteur on the right to education.

Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

UNICEF/Velasquez – At a health center on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela, a lack of spare parts has rendered mobile health units and ambulances unusable.

Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063372

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Refugees seeking reunification in Germany announce hunger strike during a protest opposite the parliament building in Athens © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

Living conditions, mostly food distribution, in refugee camps in crisis-affected regions had deteriorated dramatically before the European migrant crisis struck in 2015, David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) told German newspaper Die Zeit.

Only 3% of 2.2mn migrants who entered Europe since 2015 sent home – Pew Research

“We paid a heavy price for this mistake and I’m afraid we’re about to make it once again,” Beasley believes. According to the UN food chief, while many asylum seekers wanted to stay in their home region, the lack of food has driven them away. “If they don’t have enough food, they will leave. And many of them would go to Europe,”Beasley said.

While the UN has been seemingly making progress in fighting world hunger over the last 10 years, the number of people suffering hunger worldwide has now dramatically increased again, Beasley said, adding that the food crisis is caused mainly by wars and climate change. Yemen is threatened by famine because Saudi Arabia is blocking the country’s ports, preventing aid deliveries, Beasley said, urging Gulf countries not to stand aside but instead join the food aid program for crisis-stricken regions.

A WFP report from March says that some 108 million people across the globe faced “crisis food insecurity or worse,” a dramatic increase from 2015 when the figure was 80 million. The document says that major food crises were fueled by “conflict, record-high food prices and abnormal weather patterns.”

The number of asylum seekers in the EU during the second quarter of 2017 reached 149,000, according to statistical data from Eurostat. The applications mainly came from Syria, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Germany, Italy, France, Greece and the UK account for almost 80 percent of all first-time applicants in the union, the data shows.

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Source: https://www.rt.com/news/410080-second-refugee-crisis-europe

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