Humanitarian Aid

Angered by the Sudanese government's decision to expel 13 foreign aid groups in Darfur, leaders at one of the region's largest displacement camps are threatening to reject all humanitarian assistance until the organizations are allowed back. The self-imposed aid embargo at Kalma camp, which includes the monthly food distribution, is heightening concerns about the welfare of the 88,000 residents. The World Food Program said Kalma leaders Thursday refused a grain delivery. The U.N.

Just days before the deadline for Syria to abide by a United Nations-backed peace plan, 54 people were reported killed across the country Wednesday, including 25 in the city of Homs as shelling and sniper fire there continued. In the days since President Bashar Assad agreed to an April 10 deadline for a cease-fire, activists and observers have said the government's crackdown against dissidents has intensified. In Beit Sahm, a Damascus suburb, 15 civilians were reported killed in an explosion that destroyed two buildings.

As forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi made a last stand in Tripoli, the U.S. believes that Kadafi is still somewhere in Libya, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. “We do not have any information that he has left the country,” Col. Dave Lapan said. U.S. aircraft are continuing to fly surveillance operations over Libya as part of the NATO effort to find Kadafi and other Libyan leaders, NATO officials said.  The operations include U.S. Predator drone aircraft, two more of which were deployed to Libya last week.

  At a small table in a hotel restaurant where elderly men drank coffee and played speed chess, Abu Ismail's phone rang. He picked it up and squinted at the caller ID. "Allo," he said. "A 16? How many? $2,000? If it's clean, bring it, yes. " With that, Abu Ismail bought one M-16 assault rifle for the Syrian rebellion. For months, arms merchants such as Abu Ismail have been buying black-market weapons in Lebanon for the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The article "Vietnamese Say They'll Send Aid to Homeland Despite Criticism" (Sept. 2), based on the recent trip to Vietnam by our group leader Mr. Bang Cong Nguyen, presented several not-too-encouraging comments from a couple of Vietnamese community leaders, but more importantly stated very little of our group's concerns and intentions. Basically, our group (Social Assistance Program for Vietnam) is a nonprofit and non-governmental organization whose primary objectives are to provide face-to-face humanitarian aid to Vietnam.

The United States and allied governments seeking the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad were expected to exert new pressure Friday on Syrian authorities to agree to a cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid into besieged areas such as the battered central city of Homs. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the many diplomats scheduled to arrive Friday in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, with a goal of turning up the heat on Assad's government. "We've got to find ways to get food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance in to those affected by violence," Clinton said Thursday in London, where she and other diplomats discussed Syria, among other issues.

Congress, rushing toward its summer vacation, gave final approval Wednesday to aid for Nicaraguan rebels and also moved to kill the nation's synthetic fuels program. The House and Senate included $27 million in humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras, in the first foreign aid bill to clear Congress in four years. Under terms of the bill, the aid cannot be distributed by either the Central Intelligence Agency or the Defense Department.

The United States will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people even after a Hamas government is formed, a senior U.S. envoy told Palestinian leaders during the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Hamas' election victory. State Department envoy David Welch said the United States continues "to be devoted to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and we shall remain so."

Backed by four U.S. Navy ships, hundreds of heavily armed Marines moved into the convulsed island territory of East Timor, delivering humanitarian aid and ready to defend against any threat by militia gangs, said Marine spokesman Lt. Jeff Landis. Last week, militias killed three U.N. aid workers in neighboring West Timor, and other gangs have killed two U.N. peacekeepers in East Timor in recent clashes. The U.S. troops ferried tons of building materials and food to humanitarian groups.

Afghanistan's government has set up a bank account to channel money for humanitarian aid to Iraq and urged wealthy Afghans to contribute, state television reported. Money from the account, at the central bank in Kabul, would be delivered to the Iraqi people later by a United Nations envoy, the report said. International donors at a conference in Japan last year pledged about $5 billion to help rebuild Afghanistan after a U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban.

Aid agencies were unable to evacuate any people Saturday from a battle-scarred neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs, one day after the United States and other nations demanded that President Bashar Assad allow humanitarian aid into strife-ridden Syria. Among the injured still stranded in Homs' Baba Amr district were a pair of Western journalists, Edith Bouvier of the French daily Le Figaro and Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times of London. Both suffered leg injuries in a shelling attack Wednesday that killed two other Western journalists.

The United States and allied governments seeking the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad were expected to exert new pressure Friday on Syrian authorities to agree to a cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid into besieged areas such as the battered central city of Homs. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the many diplomats scheduled to arrive Friday in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, with a goal of turning up the heat on Assad's government. "We've got to find ways to get food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance in to those affected by violence," Clinton said Thursday in London, where she and other diplomats discussed Syria, among other issues.

As forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi made a last stand in Tripoli, the U.S. believes that Kadafi is still somewhere in Libya, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. “We do not have any information that he has left the country,” Col. Dave Lapan said. U.S. aircraft are continuing to fly surveillance operations over Libya as part of the NATO effort to find Kadafi and other Libyan leaders, NATO officials said.  The operations include U.S. Predator drone aircraft, two more of which were deployed to Libya last week.

As Somalia's drought and famine worsened in recent months, the Shabab militia in the south seized families' crops and livestock and imposed taxes that made it almost impossible to survive, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch. The militia banned international humanitarian agencies as "infidels" and told the desperate population to depend on God instead. And it stopped many hungry people from fleeing the country for survival. "I think they wanted the people to die," one refugee from the Shabab-controlled Sakoh district told researchers with the rights group in an April interview in a refugee camp in neighboring Kenya.

To save themselves, Rahmo Ibrahim Madey and three of her children escaped on foot this month from southern Somalia's Bakol region — a drought-racked land controlled by the Islamist militants of the Shabab group. Less than 20 miles from their destination, the battered capital of Mogadishu, Madey's 1-year-old daughter, Fadumo, died of starvation. Days later, under a shelter of plastic sheeting and castaway fabric at one of the makeshift refugee camps in the capital, the 29-year-old mother spooned small helpings of porridge into the mouth of her 4-year-old daughter, Batulo.

Violent attacks against humanitarian aid workers have tripled during the last decade, with more than 100 deaths reported annually, according to a study commissioned by the United Nations. The report shows that the highest toll has been among aid workers in areas of armed conflict, including Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia. Since 2005, there have been 180 major attacks against aid workers in Afghanistan, 150 in Sudan and 100 in Somalia, according to the report released this week called "To Stay and Deliver.

President Bush drew a hard line today against shipments of humanitarian aid to Iraq, insisting that if any such shipments are permitted, they "must be distributed under strict international supervision." "We cannot allow Saddam Hussein to divert needed humanitarian aid in order to sustain his army of occupation," Bush said.

A commission appointed by Israel's government concluded Sunday that the country's military did not violate international law in carrying out a deadly commando raid last spring against a protest ship that was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's naval blockade. The panel blamed activists on board the ship for instigating the violence, which ended in the shooting deaths of nine Turkish passengers, including one with dual U.S. citizenship.

Egypt's decision Tuesday to open its border with the Gaza Strip after Israel's deadly raid on an aid flotilla highlights the difficult position Cairo faces in its uncomfortable relationship with the coastal enclave. The government of President Hosni Mubarak had closed the border for all but a few days each month in an effort to weaken the militant group Hamas, which controls the strip. Much of the Arab world assails that policy as capitulation to U.S. and Israeli interest at the expense of Gaza's 1.5 million long-suffering residents.