Breaking News

When the tsunami of December 26 hit Sri Lanka with 50-foot waves traveling more than 1.5 miles inland, the country was already reeling from floods two weeks earlier. Over a period of 10 days, floods had destroyed thousands of homes and half the local paddy fields, slashing January's projected food harvest by 75% and leaving 61,000 Sri Lankans affected.

Limited access to food and sanitation in Gonaives, Haiti, will increase risks to the population during the coming weeks, according to Action Against Hunger/Action Contre la Faim (ACF), the non-governmental, non-religious, non-profit international organization that aids more than 5 million beneficiaries a year around the world.

Two weeks after the country was devastated by Hurricane Jeanne, the situation in Haiti remains precarious: the number of casualties and the scale of material damage continue to increase in a climate of social unrest. Many areas remain inaccessible. Action Against Hunger has put in place emergency water and sanitation programmes in order to make up for the shortage of drinking water and to restore access to clean water as soon as possible.

Following the political crisis at the beginning of the year and torrential rains in May, Haiti has now been ravaged by tropical storm Jeanne.

For over 6 years drought has ravaged central Afghanistan, particularly the district of Hazaradjat (Dai Kundi). This year, a winter of littler snow and no rain further diminished the few remaining resources of the people of these extremely remote areas. Last June, Action Against Hunger sounded the alarm via the press about the food situation in this region.

Action Against Hunger, Aide Medicale Internationale and Handicap International were shocked and outraged to learn of the abduction of four humanitarian workers yesterday in Baghdad. Italians Simona Torita and Simona Baro, who work for the NGO “A Bridge to Iraq,” were seized by gunmen at their offices in the Iraqi capital in broad daylight, along with an Iraqi female aid worker and an Iraqi male colleague. The relief groups are expressing their grave concern about the situation, and making an appeal that all efforts be made to secure their release as soon as possible.

Refugees from the eastern province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo returned to their homes this week only to find that government and rebel troops had stolen their belongings, pilfered or destroyed at least sixty percent of the harvested crops, and looted a number of hospitals and therapeutic feeding centers run by Action Against Hunger / Action Contre la Faim (ACF) , according to an evaluation conducted by the international humanitarian organization.

To address the growing needs of the Darfur population, Action Against Hunger is reinforcing its local programs. The organization urgently needs volunteer nurse-nutritionists (with at least 2 years in similar programs) to leave as soon as possible for the Darfur region:

Despite higher rainfall in 2003 that followed five years of severe drought, the population in the central provinces of Afghanistan is once again threatened by food shortages.

In Angola today, around one million citizens may be at risk of lacking sufficient food resources for a period of some months. Despite the acute risk neither the Government of Angola nor the international community has responded in the least, thereby increasing the risk.