The deadly earthquakes that struck western Afghanistan have left hundreds of thousands of people in urgent need of assistance. In response to the disaster, UN agencies are launching an appeal for funds to provide relief and support to those affected.

Disasters compounded

The earthquakes were followed by a series of aftershocks, including a major one on Wednesday that caused additional damage. On top of this, a dust storm on Thursday destroyed hundreds of tents in affected villages, leaving many displaced families without shelter.

According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the affected families have been moved from the Gazergah Transit Centre to a school in Herat City, where they will require food and non-food relief items.

The situation is dire, and immediate action is needed to provide support to the affected families.

Appeals launched

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has launched a $14.4 million humanitarian appeal to provide shelters, heaters, and warm clothes to survivors who are sleeping out in the open. With winter approaching, it is crucial to ensure that these individuals have adequate protection from the cold.

UNHCR will also provide legal assistance and counselling, helping families recover and process essential documents to exercise their civil rights.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has also issued an initial appeal for $20 million. This funding will be used to deliver emergency and trauma care for newborns and children, repair schools and healthcare facilities, and provide psychosocial and mental health support to children and families.

These appeals highlight the urgent need for funding to address the immediate and long-term needs of the affected families and communities.

Vulnerable families

The earthquakes have hit communities already grappling with years of conflict, insecurity, and climate-induced disasters. Rushnan Murtaza, acting UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, emphasized the dire situation faced by children in these communities.

UNICEF and its partners have been providing life-saving assistance since the onset of the disaster. However, additional support is needed to ensure children have access to healthcare, protection, and clean water.

The situation is particularly critical for vulnerable families, and immediate intervention is required to prevent a further deterioration of their conditions.

Needs and response

UN agencies and their partners are continuing relief efforts and assessing the scale of the damage caused by the earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks.

Of particular concern is the damage to health facilities, which has left over 580,000 people cut off from medical care. The destruction of schools has also disrupted education in the region.

In response to the crisis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has supplied over 95 tons of food rations and commodities to thousands of affected people. UNICEF, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have delivered shelter, food, and non-food assistance to over 550 families in 15 affected villages.

The efforts of these organizations and partners are crucial in providing immediate relief and support to the affected communities.

Source: UN News

The earthquakes in western Afghanistan have had devastating consequences, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in urgent need of assistance. UN agencies have launched appeals for funds to provide relief and support to those affected. The situation is particularly dire for vulnerable families, who are already grappling with the effects of conflict, insecurity, and climate-induced disasters. Immediate action is needed to ensure that these families have access to essentials such as shelter, healthcare, and clean water. The damage to health facilities and schools has further compounded the crisis, leaving communities cut off from essential services. However, UN agencies, along with their partners, are working tirelessly to provide immediate relief and assess the scale of the damage. The international community must come together to support these efforts and ensure that the affected families receive the assistance they desperately need.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached a “lethal low” as the Israeli military orders the relocation of over 1.1 million people from the northern region of Wadi Gaza to the southern area, within a 24-hour deadline. This announcement, made by UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, has raised concerns about devastating consequences for the already vulnerable population. The United Nations (UN) and its agencies have called for the order to be rescinded, emphasizing the impossibility of such a movement and the dire humanitarian repercussions it would entail.

‘Death sentence’ for many

UN representatives in Gaza have described the relocation order as a “death sentence” for many affected individuals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has joined the call for Israel to retract the order, highlighting the impossibility of evacuating vulnerable hospital patients from the north of Gaza. The UN has reiterated its appeals for the immediate release of hostages held in Gaza and for the protection of civilians, as well as urgent aid access to the sealed-off enclave.

‘Pushing people into the abyss’

UN humanitarians have also expressed concern about the worsening situation in Gaza and the potential loss of civilian lives. The head of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that the relocation order would lead to unprecedented levels of misery and further push people in Gaza into an abyss. The UNRWA stated that Gaza is on the brink of collapse, emphasizing the need for all parties to uphold the laws of war.

Aid ‘locked out’

The UN has urgently requested humanitarian access to Gaza, as supplies are quickly depleting. The situation has reached a critical point, with UN officials stating that they are effectively locked out of Gaza. On Thursday, the UN launched a flash appeal for $294 million to address the urgent needs of 1.26 million people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The immediate priority is to de-escalate the conflict and alleviate the suffering of civilians.

Health system at ‘breaking point’

The health system in Gaza is at a breaking point, with hospitals exceeding their capacities and struggling to provide adequate care. The World Health Organization has reported that six out of the seven main hospitals in Gaza are only partially functioning. Moving critically injured patients and those depending on life support would be a death sentence, and health workers are facing a difficult choice of whom to save in a dire situation that is overwhelming the already strained healthcare system. There have also been numerous attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel, further exacerbating the crisis.

Release hostages, protect civilians

The UN Human Rights Office insists that civilians must never be used as bargaining chips and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages. Both Palestinian armed groups and Israel are urged to respect international humanitarian law and halt attacks against civilians. The rise in hate speech, including anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric, is also a cause for concern, and leaders are called upon to stem such hate speech and incitements to violence.

Rise in hate speech

The situation in Gaza has sparked strong emotions worldwide, leading to a proliferation of hate speech and incitement to violence in many countries. The UN rights chief deplores this rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate speech and calls on leaders to unite against it. In the face of this desperate situation, the international community must show solidarity and advocate for the protection of all civilians, regardless of their background.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet in New York to discuss the situation in Gaza, highlighting the urgency of the crisis and the need for a coordinated international response.

Sources: UN Note to Correspondents, UN News

What does it take to get food, medicine, emergency education, and shelter to record numbers of people in some of the most dangerous places on Earth? The UN does this around the world, including in Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan, Ukraine, and the occupied Palestinian territory.

One in every 33 people (that’s 242 million people) on the planet needed humanitarian assistance in 2022, and most of that aid was coordinated through the UN.

Coordination: Crisis HQ

This week, as the Israel-Palestine crisis erupted on 7 October, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York swiftly mobilized. As with all UN emergency responses, the agency facilitates efforts to deliver life-saving aid to those in need.

Taking the lead in providing relief on the ground, including in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Gaza this week, are many UN acronyms commonly identified with emergency aid worldwide, including the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), and other such specialized agencies as those focused on refugees (UNHCR) and children (UNICEF).

A crisis team at UN Headquarters in New York works around the clock to monitor hotspots across the world. To support these efforts, the UN Department of Global Communications (DGC) amplifies emergency needs and funding appeals globally online and on social media.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres and his special envoys engage key players in each conflict to try to find a peaceful solution. In the meantime, the UN chief and staff monitor situations on the ground, inform the media of updates, and discuss with national authorities the best, safest ways to get aid to communities in crisis.

Aid hubs: World’s largest humanitarian warehouse

Planning is essential; much of the aid distributed to people in need across the world comes from storage facilities in Denmark, where UNICEF operates its Global Supply and Logistics Hub in Copenhagen.

Spanning more than 20,000 square metres, it is the largest humanitarian warehouse in the world.

A donation from Denmark, it can store up to 36,000 pallets of supplies, which are moved around by automated robot cranes.

Additional hubs are located worldwide, including in China, Italy, Panama, and the United Arab Emirates.

Walking the talk

Funding for these operations comes from nations around the world, which also donate year-round to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). Managed by OCHA, the fund has to date provided more than $6 billion in life-saving assistance in more than 100 countries and territories.

The UN humanitarian affairs office also operates country-based funds (CBPF), managed by the UN, which makes money available to those working on the ground, including its own entities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Organizations.

OCHA allocated a record $1.2 billion through CBPF in 2022, helping partners to address the humanitarian needs of about 47 million people caught in crises.

Most recently, the UN agency released $5 million early this week to help people sheltering in Gaza and the West Bank.

How aid gets there

Boats, trucks, planes, and even drones help the UN get aid to people in need. If you’ve ever wondered just how aid supplies and relief workers themselves get to crisis-torn countries where they are needed most, it’s the UN Humanitarian Air Service that steps in when no other means of reaching isolated communities are available.

Known by its acronym, UNHAS, the service was set up in 2003, is managed by WFP, and for the past two decades has been offering safe, reliable, cost-efficient, and effective passenger and light cargo transport for the wider humanitarian community to and from areas of crisis and intervention.

UNHAS has a fleet of more than 90 aircraft, including helicopters, that transports on average more than 33,000 passengers and about 300 metric tonnes of light cargo per month to 310 regular destinations.

Drones have been also been used to reach hard-to-access areas to deliver vaccines, medicines, diagnostic samples, blood products, and other commodities, according to UNICEF, which launched the first ever humanitarian drone corridor in Africa in 2016.

Delivery routes are critical, so the UN discusses transport agreements among nations during conflicts. That included aid in Syria as well as the Black Sea Initiative, agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine, which for one year brought more than 32 tonnes of food stuffs to 45 countries on three continents.

Safe passages: On the ground

The UN and its agencies on the ground routinely request from national authorities the establishment of humanitarian corridors, or safe, unimpeded access for aid workers and deliveries to safely reach those who need help the most. 

At the national level, when emergencies occur, the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator manages relief efforts, working hand-in-hand with local authorities.

But, it is UN staff, predominantly national staff with their local knowledge and contacts, that enable much of the relief work and often face the biggest risks, including those employed by the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.

A dozen UN agencies and 17,000 staff members, mostly Palestine refugees, work in Gaza and the West Bank, home to more than two million people.

Despite falling rockets and closed borders, they continued to provide assistance in Gaza on Thursday, five days after the crisis began, even as the UN announced that 12 of its staff members had been killed by airstrikes.

“The humanitarian society responds despite the fact that the resources available in Gaza are not enough,” OCHA staff member Hamada El Bayari told UN News.

“There has been an almost complete stop of the supply chain, and resources have not for the last couple of days been authorized to come to Gaza,” he said. “It’s becoming, over the past days, extremely challenging for the humanitarian workers to the put their feet where the impact is.”

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