The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: u n security council
U.N. Meets On Yemen As Relief Ops Threatened

U.N. Meets On Yemen As Relief Ops Threatened

Aden (AFP) – The U.N. Security Council began closed-door consultations Friday on the conflict in Yemen, where fuel shortages are threatening relief operations as Saudi-led air strikes enter a sixth week.

Russia requested the 15-member Council meet to at least clinch a humanitarian pause in the fighting, which U.N. agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) say is also putting hospitals at risk.

The latest strikes and clashes on the ground killed 47 people in Yemen’s second city of Aden, where the Red Cross also scrambled to evacuate staff and patients from a hospital when it became a front line.

And after a meeting in Riyadh, Gulf Arab foreign ministers rejected any moves to hold Yemen peace talks at a neutral venue, as sought by Saudi Arabia’s arch foe Iran.

The conflict escalated in March when a Saudi-led coalition launched strikes against Iran-backed Shiite rebels who overran much of the country, forcing President Abedrabbo Mansur Hadi to flee.

The bombing has virtually halted the delivery of humanitarian aid and fuel, with the ICRC describing the situation as “alarming” and UN chief Ban Ki-moon saying relief operations could stop “within days”.

“After a month of air strikes and fighting, Yemen’s health system is struggling to cope and there are severe shortages of essential items especially food and fuel,” said the ICRC.

The World Food Programme said it was halting its food distribution as most stocks of fuel were in rebel hands.

“Humanitarian operations will end within days unless fuel supplies are restored,” said Ban.

The World Health Organization said as of Monday 1,244 people had been killed in fighting in Yemen since March 19.

WHO receives its statistics from health facilities in Yemen, but since many people are unable to get to hospitals for treatment the real numbers are probably higher.

The International Organization for Migration said since mid-March more than 12,000 people have fled the violence in Yemen.

The Red Cross deplored the health care situation, with doctors saying they are under huge strain as supplies have dwindled.

“The surgical team from the ICRC and all local staff and patients were forced to evacuate Aden’s Al-Jumhurriya hospital when the building itself became a front line in the fighting,” it said.

The ICRC said hospitals should be spared.

“We are shocked by the lack of respect for the hospital, as a neutral health facility, by the fighting parties,” said its Yemen mission chief, Cedric Schweizer.

Doctors spoke of hardship.

“We are running out of diesel. Our ambulances can no longer transport patients. Only half of our staff can come to work as the hospital buses have stopped running,” said Issa Alzubh, head of Sanaa’s Al-Kuwait hospital.

A doctor in Aden, Adel al-Yafyi, said his hospital was now unable to care for ordinary patients as it was being flooded by those wounded in combat or air strikes.

The WHO said the collapse of access to health care had also fanned the spread of epidemic diseases, with 44 alerts of suspected outbreaks of diseases including measles, dengue fever and meningitis.

Alexey Zaytsev, spokesman for the Russian mission at the UN in New York, said Moscow called for the Security Council consultations “because the situation is very bad in Yemen”.

Last week, Riyadh announced a halt to the air war but since then it has kept up daily strikes.

Saudi King Salman and his son and Defence Minister Prince Mohammed have said repeatedly it will go on until the rebels concede.

Gulf foreign ministers on Thursday insisted UN-brokered talks must only take place in the Saudi kingdom.

Iran had proposed the talks be held at a neutral venue where the Huthi rebels could attend.

Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of arming the rebels.

Tehran denies this, but a confidential UN report seen by AFP gave support to the Saudi allegations.

According to the report, which was presented last week to the Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee, Tehran’s support for the Huthis goes back to 2009.

The Huthis, who swept across Sanaa last year from their northern stronghold, have long complained of marginalization and fought several wars with the government from 2004 to 2009.

Photo: Supporters of the Shiite Huthi movement brandish their weapons as they take part in a demonstration in Sanaa on May 1, 2015, against the Saudi-led military air campaign targeting Huthi rebels and their allies in Yemen. (©afp.com / Mohammed Huwais)

7 U.N. Workers Dead As Bomb Blast Rocks Somalia’s Puntland

7 U.N. Workers Dead As Bomb Blast Rocks Somalia’s Puntland

By Mohamed Odowa and Kristin Palitza, dpa (TNS)

MOGADISHU — Seven U.N. workers were killed when Islamist militants planted a bomb in a U.N. Children’s Fund bus in Somalia’s Puntland state, local police said by phone on Monday.

Somali authorities suspected the attack was caused by a suicide bomber traveling inside the bus in Garowe, the capital of Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia with a government that works largely independently of the central administration.

Initially, authorities had reported 10 deaths but later corrected the number to seven.

“It took us time to know the exact number of people who were traveling in the bus,” said police officer Mohamed Ali.

Among the victims were three U.N. staff members from Somalia, two from Kenya and one each from Uganda and Afghanistan, according to the hospital in Garowe.

“We believe that the person who blew himself up inside the U.N. bus was an al-Shabab insider who was also working for U.N. here in Garowe,” said Garowe police chief Ahmed Abdullahi Samatar Layli.

However, sources within Puntland’s intelligence agency, who asked not to be identified, said that the bomb was planted under the seat of a UNICEF bus and detonated by remote control.

The blast occurred as the bus was entering the headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, said police.

Police also reported 10 people wounded in the blast.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and called for security for humanitarian workers and accountability for the perpetrators.

“The men and women who bring humanitarian action to light are an inspiration to us all,” Ban said. “Targeting such brave and dedicated individuals for violence is an attack on us all.”

The U.N. Security Council said it was “outraged” by “this appalling act” and reiterated its commitment to fighting terrorism in all its forms.

“The horrific attack on our UNICEF colleagues today in northern Somalia is an assault not only on them but on the people they served,” UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said in a statement.

“Our continuing work for the most vulnerable children and their families in Somalia will be a fitting tribute to those we have lost,” said Lake.

“I condemn (the) attack this morning on U.N. in Garowe. Shocked and appalled by loss of life,” U.N. special representative for Somalia, Nick Kay, said on Twitter.

Puntland police initially suspected the attack to be a suicide car bombing that was targeting a U.N. building.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to pro-militant website somalimemo.net, citing an unnamed al-Shabab official.

The terrorist group regularly stages attacks against government and international agencies.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

AFP Photo/Jacques Demarthon

World Powers, Iran To Meet In New York On September 18

World Powers, Iran To Meet In New York On September 18

Brussels (AFP) — Six world powers and Iran will hold new talks in New York on September 18, EU officials said Thursday, as efforts intensify toward clinching a nuclear deal ahead of a November deadline.

The talks involving the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany and led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton “will continue in New York as of September 18,” Ashton spokesman Michael Mann said.

An EU source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the talks would be held at the level of political directors.

Mann said the talks in New York, which typically take place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, would be preceded by similar but smaller groupings of officials in both Geneva and Vienna.

Talks were due to begin Thursday in Geneva between senior U.S. and Iranian officials while he added that France, Britain, and Germany would hold a separate round of talks with Iran at the political directors level on September 11 in Vienna.

Earlier this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he had had “good discussions” with Ashton in Brussels and Tehran was committed to an accord over its contested nuclear program.

Quoted by the Belga news agency, Zarif said he was “fairly optimistic” after that Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States — plus Germany could reach a deal by the November deadline.

AFP Photo/Atta Kenare

Interested in world news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

‘Barrel Bomb’ Use In Syria On The Rise, Rights Group Says

‘Barrel Bomb’ Use In Syria On The Rise, Rights Group Says

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

The Syrian government has escalated its use of “barrel bombs” against densely populated neighborhoods near Aleppo in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the indiscriminate and deadly explosives, Human Rights Watch reported Wednesday.

The report also appealed to Russia and China to cease blocking U.N. efforts to impose an arms embargo on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and to prohibit foreign servicing of the Damascus regime’s weaponry and warplanes.

In the five months since the Security Council ordered all parties in the 3-year-old Syrian civil war to stop using barrel bombs and other weapons designed to cause widespread human casualties, at least 650 new damage sites have been documented near embattled Aleppo that are consistent with barrel bomb explosions, the New York-based rights group reported.

That figure compares with 380 suspected barrel bomb blasts in the equivalent period before the February Security Council resolution, the report noted.

The Violations Documentation Center, an Aleppo-area rights group, reports that at least 1,655 civilians have been killed in aerial attacks on Syria’s largest city since the Feb. 22 resolution.

In London, the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported more than 2,300 deaths across Syria during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that ended on Sunday. Many of the deaths were attributed to barrel bombs and other high-explosive aerial strikes.

“Month after month, the Security Council has sat idly by as the government defied its demands with new barrel bomb attacks on Syrian civilians,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Barrel bombs are typically built from oil drums or water tanks that are filled with explosives and scrap metal and dropped from helicopters. Human Rights Watch documented the most serious attacks in opposition-held neighborhoods, directing suspicion on government forces, but also reported instances of the prohibited attacks by “non-state armed groups,” meaning Syrian rebels and foreign militants who have come to their aid in a fratricide that has killed more than 126,000 people by most estimates.

Whitson noted in the rights group report that barrel bombs and other high-explosive ordnance have killed many thousands more Syrians than have chemical weapons attacks. A U.S.-Russia agreement last year led to a program that has since removed and destroyed the government’s chemical weapons stockpiles and “radically diminished the risk to the civilian population from that threat,” Whitson said.

Russia and China, which are among the five permanent Security Council members who can veto action, have consistently opposed measures of censure against Assad’s government, in part due to concerns that such a precedent could subject their own human rights abuses to international reprimand.

Appealing for similar joint efforts to rid Syria of the barrel bomb hazards, Whitson asked: “What will it take to get Russia and China to allow the Security Council to enforce its own words, and take real steps to address these unlawful attacks?”

AFP Photo/Karam al-Masri

Interested in world news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!