"A year of disasters around the world sparked an unprecedented outpouring of aid, but richer nations still are not giving enough money to tackle lingering humanitarian crises, the United Nations' humanitarian chief says.
Jan Egeland said, for example, that as many people died in Congo every eight months as in last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.
He also criticised political leaders for failing to take action to end the wars that created humanitarian crises or invest in disaster prevention to ease the impact of earthquakes, hurricanes and floods.
The work of UN and other relief workers in conflict-wracked eastern Congo, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, and in northern Uganda had become "an alibi for lack of political and security action", Egeland said." [Emphasis added]
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Survivors have to prepare their meals outdoors
"The United Nations World Food programme (WFP) can guarantee winter food supplies for hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors in remote high-altitude villages in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but continuing donor support is vital for one of the most challenging logistical operations the agency has ever faced." [Full article]
Pakistani soldiers help carry boxes of high energy biscuits
from a UN helicopter for the families in the remote village
of Nauseri, Neelum Valley, Pakistan
Associated Press: "The U.N. on Friday warned it will run out of money and be forced to ground helicopters delivering earthquake relief supplies to northern Pakistan unless donors come through with the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to see 2.3 million hungry people through the winter.
"The logistical challenge of reaching the hundreds
of thousands of people in desperate need of assistance
after an earthquake struck Pakistan, northern India and
Afghanistan on 8 October is one of the toughest the
aid world has ever faced." WFP
BBC: "The UN says the shortfall in aid for victims of the South Asian quake has made the relief situation worse than after last December's tsunami.
UN emergency relief chief, Jan Egeland, said the organisation had never seen such a "logistical nightmare."
Nato began flying in 900 tonnes of aid on Thursday, but Mr Egeland said a massive airlift was also needed to bring people out of remote areas. Pakistan says nearly 50,000 people died in areas under its control.
Local officials put casualties far higher, and the number is expected to rise. At least 1,400 others died in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials say."
UNHCR staff in Islamabad offload tents bound for
earthquake victims in disaster-affected areas of Pakistan.
"A top U.N. official called for more urgency in the world's response to the Kashmir earthquake, saying millions were suffering from a disaster that hit more people over a wider area than the Asian tsunami.
"We need to have a sense of urgency here like we had in the tsunami," the U.N.'s chief emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland told Reuters in an interview after touring the disaster area in Pakistani Kashmir and Northwest Frontier Province.
The official death toll from Saturday's quake is 25,000 but is expected to rise. Some local officials in Pakistan say it could exceed 40,000. Another 1,200 died in Indian Kashmir." [Read more]