Libya in 2016 is plagued by conflict. Multiple armed groups, fighting, crime, and kidnapping are destroying normal life. Families are fleeing their homes, or living in constant fear. The bright hopes of a few years ago have not become reality.
Amina* is only 12 months old, but she is a casualty of the protracted conflict in Somalia. When fighting lasts for decades, it causes not just war injuries, it disrupts the most basic norms of daily life: mothers face huge challenges to care for their children, and malnutrition is common.
Armed conflict in northeast Nigeria and the Lake Chad region has displaced an estimated two million people and Dar es Salaam refugee camp in Chad is now home to around 5,000 people. Many of them are children, and many of those children are completely alone.
Almost one in every two prisoners in Madagascar suffers from moderate or severe malnutrition. In 2015, more than 9,000 inmates were identified as malnourished and treated as part of an emergency food programme aiming to get this extremely vulnerable population back on their feet and prevent malnutrition-related deaths. With more than 4,000 prisoners already treated so far in 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is on track to reach the 2015 figure by the end of the year.
Following the fierce fighting in Fallujah, the US government is today (July 20) holding a pledging conference in Washington with major governments. They aim to raise $861 million to support humanitarian and stabilization efforts in Iraq'.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, says that levels of suffering in Syria and Iraq have reached unprecedented levels. "Hundreds of thousands killed; millions on the move; families torn apart," states Maurer. "Even as Ramadan comes to an end, many, many ordinary people are living in abject fear and terrifying uncertainty. A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding."
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says over 9 million people are in urgent need of aid in the Lake Chad region of Africa. More than 2.4 million people have fled their homes in four countries, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria because of the conflict between government forces and armed opposition, which has lasted six years.
As the battle for Fallujah intensifies, thousands of people have fled the central Iraqi city in the past two weeks. The city, the largest in Anbar Province, has been under siege since early 2014. According to the United Nations at least 50,000 people are still trapped in the heart of the city.
Five years since the Libyan revolution which ousted Colonel Gadhafi from power, bullets are still flying. The situation is getting worse as fighting intensifies, pushing people out of their homes.
Today (June 1) the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivered medicines, baby milk, vaccines and nutritional items for children to the besieged town of Daraya with the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
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