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Red Cross marks record numbers of humanitarians killed in 2024

Red Cross marks record numbers of humanitarians killed in 2024
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) staff hold pictures of their 31 staff and volunteers lost while performing their humanitarian duties during an event to honour their memories, and to raise awareness on the urgent need to protect humanitarians everywhere, in Geneva on December 4, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 2 min 4 sec ago
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Red Cross marks record numbers of humanitarians killed in 2024

Red Cross marks record numbers of humanitarians killed in 2024
  • “2024 is now the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers, especially for local staff and volunteers worldwide,” Stoiljkovic says
Updated 2 min 4 sec ago
AFP
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GENEVA: Dozens of Red Cross staff and volunteers gathered Wednesday for a candlelight vigil for more than 30 of their colleagues killed in 2024, during the deadliest year on record for humanitarians.
More than 100 people crowded outside the headquarters of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva, most donning red vests and carrying candles.
The tribute came as a Palestine Red Crescent volunteer was killed Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, which “brings the total number of IFRC network members killed worldwide this year to 32,” the group said in a statement.
“Alaa Al-Derawi, a member of PRCS’s emergency medical team, was fatally shot in the Khan Younis area of Gaza, shortly after transporting patients for treatment. He was returning to base when the incident occurred,” it said.
In Geneva, standing in the stinging cold in front of a banner emblazoned with the words “Protect Humanity,” some held up pictures of the staff and volunteers killed this year while performing their humanitarian duties.
“We are shocked. We are appalled,” Nena Stoiljkovic, the IFRC’s Under Secretary-General for Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization, told the gathering.
“We are not a target,” added IFRC official Frank Mohrhauer.
Following a minute of silence, an IFRC staff member solemnly read out the names of those killed.
They were among a record number of aid workers who have perished around the world this year.
Already last month, the United Nations said the record number of 280 humanitarians killed in 2023 had been surpassed, and the number has kept climbing.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza has especially been driving up the numbers, but aid workers were also subject to violence and killings in a range of countries including Sudan and Ukraine.
“2024 is now the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers, especially for local staff and volunteers worldwide,” Stoiljkovic said.
“This grim milestone has not spared the IFRC network,” she said, pointing to more “heartbreaking news” just last week when another Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteer was killed, and eight others injured in an attack.
“They were rescuing people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance,” she said.
Stoiljkovic told AFP that the event, which came before International Volunteers’ Day on Thursday, provided “a moment to reflect” on the towering losses with “sadness and compassion.”

Topics: Red Cross Humanitarian International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

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Trump’s Pentagon nominee Hegseth pushes ahead amid doubts

Trump’s Pentagon nominee Hegseth pushes ahead amid doubts
Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
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Trump’s Pentagon nominee Hegseth pushes ahead amid doubts

Trump’s Pentagon nominee Hegseth pushes ahead amid doubts
  • Hegseth has faced a wave of allegations since Trump tapped him
  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as an option
Updated 2 min 16 sec ago
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, pushed ahead on Wednesday with his bid for the job amid doubts in the Senate over allegations about his personal and professional life.
Even as Hegseth made his case to Republican lawmakers whose support he’d need to be confirmed as defense secretary, Trump was considering alternates, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis emerging as an option, according to two sources familiar with internal deliberations.
Republican Representative Mike Waltz, whom Trump had previously tapped to be White House national security adviser, was another potential pick, a third source told Reuters. Another source said Republican Senator Joni Ernst could also be in the running for the job.
A former Fox News personality and former National Guard officer, Hegseth has faced a wave of allegations since Trump tapped him, including one of sexual assault, which he denied; media reports of public inebriation while working; and claims of financial mismanagement at prior jobs.
“I have some very real concerns about some things that have come out recently and I want to ask him about that,” Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said on Wednesday. Republicans will have a 53-47 Senate majority, meaning that Hegseth could afford to lose the support of just three fellow Republicans and still be confirmed.
During a break between meetings with lawmakers, Hegseth told the Megyn Kelly radio show, “I’ve never had a drinking problem” but would nonetheless not drink alcohol if confirmed as defense secretary. He said he spoke on Wednesday morning with Trump, who urged him to keep fighting.
Hegseth is not the first Trump Cabinet pick to run into difficulties. Former Representative Matt Gaetz dropped his bid for attorney general last month in the face of questions among Senate Republicans about alleged sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl and drug use. Gaetz has denied wrongdoing.
Trump’s pick to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, Chad Chronister, dropped his bid on Tuesday after pushback from some Republicans for the Florida sheriff’s actions during the early days of the COVID pandemic.
Trump said on Wednesday on social media of Chronister, “He didn’t pull out. I pulled him out.”
Senator John Thune, who will lead Senate Republicans next year, told reporters he would meet with Hegseth on Wednesday, as would other Senate Republicans.
“He’s going to have an opportunity to address all the questions that have been raised, and there are some hard questions being raised. So he’ll have to answer those,” Thune said.
Hegseth was also set to meet with Ernst, a military veteran and sexual assault survivor, on Wednesday. That talk is seen as key to his prospects, according to a person familiar with the process.
Hegseth also met with Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who is in line to chair the Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Defense Department, next year.
“I don’t see any obstacles that can’t be overcome,” Wicker told reporters afterward.
A wave of media reports has raised questions about Hegseth.
Hegseth has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California. The woman said that while drinking with colleagues, she may have been drugged and was then sexually assaulted by a man she later identified as Hegseth, according to the report.
No charges were filed, and he entered into a private settlement with the alleged victim.
NBC News cited 10 current and former Fox employees in a report on Tuesday that Hegseth’s drinking of alcohol concerned co-workers at the television network, including showing up at work smelling of alcohol and talking about being hung over.
The New York Times last month reported on an email Hegseth’s mother wrote him in 2018 in which she accused him of mistreating women, including lying, cheating, sleeping around and using women for “his own power and ego.”
Hegseth’s mother told the Times in an interview that she had sent Hegseth an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written and that she “disavows the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women.”
On Sunday the New Yorker, citing documents and accounts of former colleagues, reported that Hegseth was forced to step down by the two nonprofit advocacy groups he ran after “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”
The article said Hegseth’s lawyer declined to comment on the claims, which he described as “outlandish.”
Hegseth did not respond to a request for comment sent through the Trump transition office. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment. A DeSantis representative also did not respond to a request for comment.
A source confirmed that Trump and DeSantis had spoken about the Pentagon job and that DeSantis was considering it.

Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions

Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions
Updated 18 min 20 sec ago
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Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions

Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions
  • Much of increase driven by conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, DRC and Sudan, UN special adviser tells Arab News
  • At nearly 76m, the number of internally displaced persons worldwide has ‘doubled in just the last 10 years’
Updated 18 min 20 sec ago
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK: Nearly 76 million people around the world are currently displaced within their own countries, according to the UN’s special advisor on internal displacement, Robert Piper.

This staggering number highlights the growing crisis of internally displaced persons who, unlike refugees, have not crossed international borders and often remain hidden from global attention.

Speaking in New York at a conference marking the end of his mandate, Piper highlighted the severe challenges in addressing the plight of IDPs, particularly those displaced by conflict, disasters and criminal violence.

“Seventy-six million people have lost their homes, livelihoods and communities. They make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s 120 million displaced persons,” he said.

“Yet they remain largely invisible, with no dedicated global agency or global treaty or compact for IDPs, no international day that singles them out, and their numbers have doubled in just the last 10 years.”

Piper told Arab News that in the past five years alone, 20 million IDPs were added to the global total, with much of the increase coming from conflict zones such as Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, “which has unfortunately broken all the records.”

Climate change is exacerbating the problem as extreme weather events displace millions each year.

“There has been a tremendous amount of disaster-induced displacement during the past five years as well. Pakistan’s floods displaced 8 million people. The Turkish earthquake displaced millions,” Piper said.

“But the difference is that generally speaking, people are getting home much more quickly after disasters,” whereas tens of millions of people displaced because of conflicts remain so for many years, he added.

So the UN’s approach has shifted in recent years, with a growing recognition that long-term solutions, not just humanitarian aid, are required.

Piper emphasized that while governments in countries such as Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria have taken significant steps toward resolving displacement issues, more needs to be done.

These countries have developed national strategies to assist displaced populations, with Iraq and Libya, for example, committing to fully fund their own solutions processes.

Somalia’s recent commitment of $140 million for land purchases to integrate displaced people marks another important milestone.

Piper told Arab News that “pathways to solutions” involve ensuring displaced people have access to housing, services and livelihoods.

They also focus on compensation and justice, helping IDPs restore their legal rights and integrate into local communities.

“It’s access to services, restoring those services if they’ve gone home, or giving them access to services in their place of displacement, if that’s where they choose to settle,” Piper said.

“It’s about access to a livelihood of some kind, whether it’s agricultural or urban. These are the fairly obvious kinds of conditions that everyone needs to rebuild a life.

“Perhaps less obvious are other elements of this work, compensation and justice, a recognition of what has happened to them, what they’ve lost, their inclusion in civic life.

“Often this involves allowing them to be elected, to vote in their local constituency. And in some cases it’s restoring their documentation, their identity because, indeed, many IDPs are displaced so rapidly that they lose their legal documentation.”

Piper stressed that the core of these efforts is government leadership. “Governments must take responsibility, but they also need the right kind of support from the international system, more investment in development, better capacity building, and less focus on short-term fixes,” he said.

The UN has also reorganized its structures to better support governments in resolving displacement issues.

New funding mechanisms, such as the Solutions Fund, have been created to accelerate progress, while financial institutions such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank have begun incorporating IDP solutions into their assessments and scorecards.

Piper also highlighted the challenges of working in conflict zones where governments may be part of the problem rather than the solution.

He pointed to Gaza, Myanmar and Sudan, where ongoing violence and political instability make it impossible to implement the UN’s model for long-term displacement solutions.

“In places like Gaza, the conditions aren’t conducive to solutions at this moment,” he said. “The UN’s role is primarily focused on humanitarian aid and protection, not on the long-term solutions we’re advocating in other countries.”

Piper highlighted the importance of moving beyond humanitarian assistance to address the root causes of displacement and ensure long-term stability for displaced populations.

He pointed to the UN’s efforts to make IDP solutions a priority at the international level, including discussions at climate change conferences and other forums.

Piper expressed confidence that the groundwork has been laid for more effective solutions, but stressed that continued global attention and investment are critical. “The numbers are rising, and without continued progress, this crisis will only deepen,” he warned.

The focus on long-term solutions, he said, is not only about addressing the immediate needs of IDPs, but also about creating the conditions for them to rebuild their lives and communities sustainably.

Topics: War on Gaza United Nations (UN) Robert Piper Gaza Internally displaced people (IDPs)

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French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis

Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against PM Michel Barnier and government.
Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against PM Michel Barnier and government.
Updated 04 December 2024
Reuters
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French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis

Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against PM Michel Barnier and government.
  • Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his government
  • Barnier was expected to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron shortly
Updated 04 December 2024
Reuters

PARIS: French opposition lawmakers brought the government down on Wednesday, throwing the European Union’s second-biggest economic power deeper into a political crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and rein in a massive budget deficit.
Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his government, with a majority 331 votes in support of the motion.
Barnier was expected to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron shortly.
The hard left and far right punished Barnier for opting to use special constitutional powers to adopt part of an unpopular budget without a final vote in parliament, where it lacked majority support. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63.07 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.
“This (deficit) reality will not disappear by the magic of a motion of censure,” Barnier told lawmakers ahead of the vote, adding the budget deficit would come back to haunt whichever government comes next.
No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou’s in 1962. Macron ushered in the crisis by calling a snap election in June that delivered a polarized parliament.
With its president diminished, France now risks ending the year without a stable government or a 2025 budget, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a US-style government shutdown.
France’s political turmoil will further weaken a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany’s coalition government, and weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
“We have arrived at the moment of truth,” far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen said, adding that Barnier’s austerity budget plans had been dangerous and unfair and would have meant chaos for France.
The hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party demanded Macron’s resignation.
“With the no-confidence motion, all of the politics of Emmanuel Macron have been defeated and we demand that he goes,” said LFI member Mathilde Panot.
No easy exit from French political crisis
France now faces a period of deep political uncertainty that is already unnerving investors in French sovereign bonds and stocks. Earlier this week, France’s borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece, generally considered far more risky.
Macron must now make a choice.
Three sources told Reuters that Macron aimed to install a new prime minister swiftly, with one saying he wanted to name a premier before a ceremony to reopen the Notre-Dame Cathedral on Saturday, which Trump is due to attend.
Any new prime minister would face the same challenges as Barnier in getting bills, including the 2025 budget, adopted by a divided parliament. There can be no new parliamentary election before July.
Macron could alternatively ask Barnier and his ministers to stay on in a caretaker capacity while he takes time to identify a prime minister able to attract sufficient cross-party support to pass legislation.
A caretaker government could either propose emergency legislation to roll the tax-and-spend provisions in the 2024 budget into next year, or invoke special powers to pass the draft 2025 budget by decree — though jurists say this is a legal grey area and the political cost would be huge.
Macron’s opponents also could vote down one prime minister after the next.
His rivals say the only meaningful way to end the protracted political crisis is for him to resign, something he has hitherto shown little inclination to do.
Economic pain
The upheaval is not without risk for Le Pen, who has for years sought to convince voters that her party offers a stable government in waiting.
“The French will harshly judge the choice you are going to make,” Laurent Wauquiez, a lawmaker from the conservative Les Republicains party who backs Macron, told Le Pen in parliament.
Since Macron called the summer snap election, France’s CAC 40 benchmark stock market index has dropped nearly 10 percent and is the heaviest loser among top EU economies. The euro single currency is down nearly 4 percent.
“The positive signals ... that were seen over the summer, partly due to the Olympics, are now a thing of the past,” Hamburg Commercial Bank economist Tariq Kamal Chaudhry said.
Barnier’s draft budget had sought to cut the fiscal deficit from a projected 6 percent of national output this year to 5 percent in 2025. Voting down his government would be catastrophic for state finances, he said. Le Pen shrugged off the warning. She said her party would support any eventual emergency law that rolls over the 2024 budget’s tax-and-spend provisions into next year to ensure there is stopgap financing.

Topics: France

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Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN

Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN
Updated 04 December 2024
AFP
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Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN

Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN
  • Those need an additional $300 million to prevent access to sufficient, nutritious and affordable food worsening further, risking widespread hunger, according to the WFP
Updated 04 December 2024
AFP

JOHANNESBURG: A historic drought across southern Africa has jeopardized access to food for 26 million people, the United Nations World Food Programme warned Wednesday, calling for urgent funding.

The crisis, worsened by the 2023-2024 El Nino climate phenomenon, is expected to deepen until at least the next harvests due in March or April next year.

“Today we have up to 26 million people facing acute food insecurity in the region and this is because of El Nino induced drought,” said Eric Perdison, regional director for southern Africa at the WFP.

The seven worst affected nations were Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Perdison added.

Those need an additional $300 million to prevent access to sufficient, nutritious and affordable food worsening further, risking widespread hunger, according to the WFP.

Five countries — Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — have declared a state of national emergency in the past months as the drought has destroyed scores of crops and livestock.

In many places, farmers who would normally be planting seeds at this time of the year, were not able to do so.

“If you travel across the country, you will see almost all empty fields ... The situation is really really dire,” said the WFP’s country director in Mozambique, Antonella D’Aprile.

“Communities have very little or almost nothing to eat,” she said, adding that “thousands of families are literally surviving on just one meal” a day.

Assistance “cannot wait,” warned D’Aprile. “The time to support is really now.”

In neighboring Malawi, the WFP said it has had to import food to provide assistance due to the shortages.

“Nearly half the maize crops were damaged by El Nino drought earlier this year,” said the group’s representative in the country, Paul Turnbull.

Families were facing grim choices, he said: “Skipping meals; adults not eating so their children can eat; withdrawing children from school; and selling anything they have of value.”

Despite Zambia being “known as the food basket of southern Africa,” the country “stands at the brink of a hunger crisis,” said the WFP’s director for the country Cissy Kabasuuga.

In Namibia, an upper middle-income country, the situation was also dire.

“All 14 regions were impacted by the drought, of which there are some that have very worrying levels (of food insecurity) and that’s a very worrying situation for Namibia,” said WFP’s Tiwonge Machiwenyika.

The aid group’s representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) also joined the appeal for assistance.

The country has more than 25 million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity, said Peter Musoko, WFP’s representative in the DRC, with “no relief in sight.”

That was all “due to a cocktail” of conflict, climate extremes and health crises including outbreaks of mpox, cholera and measles, Musoko added.

As a result of those multiple issues, the WFP said it had also noted an increase in sexual and gender-based violence in the country and the opening of brothels around camps hosting displaced people.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday during a trip to the region announced a $1 billion humanitarian aid package to 31 African countries, including for people affected by the drought.

Topics: World Food Programme (WFP) United Nations Drought Southern Africa

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Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’

Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’
Updated 04 December 2024
AFP
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Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’

Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’
  • India, where ex-PM Hasina has sought refuge, accuses Bangladesh of failing to protect Hindus
  • After Hasina’s ouster, Hindus and other minorities suffered attacks for allegedly supporting her
Updated 04 December 2024
AFP

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday urged the country’s politicians to keep differences at bay and put up a united front to counter “Indian aggression.”

The Muslim-majority nation saw a student-led uprising in August, toppling autocratic premier Sheikh Hasina and ending her 15-year rule.

India — Hasina’s biggest international patron and the destination of her exile — has accused Yunus’ administration of failing to protect minority Hindus, straining ties between the neighbors.

“They are undermining our efforts to build a new Bangladesh and are spreading fictitious stories,” Yunus told a gathering of Bangladeshi political parties.

“They have spread these rumors in particular countries and among influential players.”

Yunus urged politicians at the meeting to unite against what he characterised as a disinformation campaign, describing the matter as “a question of our existence.”

A caretaker administration headed by Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been tasked with enacting democratic reforms ahead of fresh elections.

The chaotic aftermath of Hasina’s ouster saw a smattering of reprisal attacks against Hindus and other minorities, based in part on their perceived support for her government.

Yunus’s administration has acknowledged and condemned attacks on Hindus but said in many cases they were motivated by politics rather than religion.

It has accused India of exaggerating the scale of the violence and running a “propaganda campaign.”

Wednesday’s meeting, Yunus’s media team said, was part of an initiative to promote national unity in the face of “Indian aggression.”

Yunus also met with student leaders on Tuesday evening.

Numerous street demonstrations have been staged against India in Bangladesh since Hasina’s ouster as diplomatic relations have cratered.

Several rallies were held on Wednesday to protest against an attempt by Hindu activists this week to storm a Bangladeshi consulate in an Indian city not far from the neighbors’ shared border.

India has condemned the breach and arrested seven people over the incident.

Topics: Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus

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