Top UNHCR official warns of crisis fatigue amid ‘massive’ Lebanese displacement

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Updated 30 September 2024
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Top UNHCR official warns of crisis fatigue amid ‘massive’ Lebanese displacement

  • Raouf Mazou, assistant high commissioner, laments killing of colleagues in Israeli strikes last week
  • ‘We all become numb … We simply don’t have the normal reaction of outrage that we should normally have’

NEW YORK CITY: With the Lebanese prime minister warning that up to 1 million people might be displaced amid war in his country, a top official with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees official has sounded the alarm on the “numbing” of the world to human suffering, and the difficulty of responding to crises in Lebanon, Sudan and elsewhere.

A “massive increase in displacement” is taking place in Lebanon, warned Raouf Mazou, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for operations, appealing for the international community to overcome its crisis fatigue and support a humanitarian response to the conflict.

He was speaking to Arab News in New York City on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly.




A smoke plume erupts after an Israeli airstrike targeted the outskirts of the village of Ibl al-Saqi in southern Lebanon on September 30, 2024. (AFP)

It comes as Israel ramped up its aerial campaign across Lebanon, with strikes into the heart of Beirut and elsewhere killing hundreds of people last week.

The escalation has compounded woes for the UN’s refugee agency, which is battling crises in some of the world’s most impoverished and conflict-ridden countries.

Two of its workers were killed last week in Lebanon. The UNHCR said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the deaths.

Dina Darwiche, from the UNHCR’s Bekaa office in the country’s east, was killed alongside her youngest son as an Israeli missile struck her home on Sept. 23. Ali Basma, who worked with the agency’s Tyre office in the south, was also confirmed dead.




Men inspect destroyed houses that used to host displaced people from three families and their local relatives, after an Israeli strike in Maaysrah, north of Beirut, Lebanon, September 27, 2024. (Reuters)

“On our colleagues, it’s the drama of the context where civilian populations are the victims of indiscriminate bombing, indiscriminate airstrikes — this is what we’re observing,” Mazou told Arab News.

“They weren’t at work at the time when it happened. They were living their normal lives. But it reminds us of how civilians are exposed.

“In addition to that, we also have situations where colleagues in the course of their duty are targeted or find themselves killed.

“And that’s another concern that we have: humanitarian workers being exposed to danger as they’re performing their functions.




Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the Shiyah neighbourhood of Beirut's southern suburbs on September 28, 2024. (AFP)

“In this specific case it wasn’t — they weren’t at work — but still, this is something that to us, of course, is extremely concerning.”

The escalation in Lebanon is “not something the world needs right now,” Mazou added, warning that the “massive numbers” being displaced in the country also include the 80,000 Lebanese who fled to neighboring Syria in the past week, according to the government.

In response to the conflict, the UNHCR is executing its contingency plans and beginning distribution of pre-positioned aid, but urgently needs assistance as part of a wider international response, Mazou said, adding that it will also “strengthen its presence” to protect the most vulnerable.

But with conflicts in the region already raging in Sudan, Gaza, Syria and Yemen, there is a “difficulty” in mobilizing adequate resources for Lebanon, he said.

“We have core relief items already pre-positioned in the region which we can give fairly fast. We have the presence of colleagues. The presence of colleagues is absolutely essential. There are many other items that are necessary and which we’ll provide,” he added.

“We’re now coming up with an appeal that we’re going to issue, to ask for support from the international community.

“But that’s happening at a time when it’s already difficult to mobilize resources. There are many other crises around the world, so it’s already difficult. And now we have another crisis added to the existing one.

“So we’re very worried. We hope we’ll be able to mobilize, but we’re really appealing to the international community to provide the resources that are required.”

For Mazou, the proliferation of conflict has not only tested the logistical strength of the UNHCR, but has also “numbed” the global community to human suffering.

“We all become numb. There’s a new conflict, there’s a new crisis — we simply don’t have the normal reaction of outrage that we should normally have,” he said.

The result is that many of the countries receiving refugees from the world’s conflicts — some of which are already impoverished and unstable — are unable to provide sufficient protection and support.

Host countries are often “in very difficult situations” themselves and, faced with accepting millions of refugees, are too often left to handle the problem alone, Mazou said.

“They provide a global public good by receiving refugees, but they need the support of the international community.




Children walk on the street as displaced people take shelter at a square after fleeing the Israeli strikes in central Beirut, in Lebanon September 30, 2024. (Reuters)

“If you don’t give that support, at the end of the day it’s the victims who are again exposed to more danger.”

Chad, for example, hosts about 2 million refugees, including from Sudan. “That’s completely untenable for a country that’s fairly poor, and also a country that’s suffering from the economic impact of the war in Sudan.

“The whole eastern part of Chad … now finds itself in a situation where it can no longer benefit from the economic trade that was taking place.

“It’s the countries which are receiving these refugees, whether it’s Chad, whether it’s the Central African Republic, whether it’s Libya, whether it’s Egypt — countries which are struggling in providing the protection and the system that’s required. They need the support of the international community,” Mazou said.

A lack of international support in the humanitarian response to crises has dire effects on the ground, meaning a greater risk of famine, sexual violence against women, and children losing access to education, he warned.

“The consequences are that you don’t provide the basic assistance that’s required, whether it’s food assistance with the risk of famine, women finding themselves exposed to sexual violence, or children who absolutely don’t have access to school. Children in Sudan haven’t had access to school for all this time.”




Displaced Sudanese queue for food aid at a camp in the eastern city of Gedaref on September 23, 2024. (AFP)

The civil war in Sudan has pushed the UNHCR’s mandate to its limit. After 17 months of conflict, the country is now victim to the world’s worst hunger crisis, and humanitarian agencies are struggling to respond.

More than 10 million people have been forcibly displaced from Sudan, pushed into neighboring countries and beyond, with the UNHCR recently declaring emergencies in Uganda and Libya related to the conflict.

At the UN this week, Filippo Grandi, the UNHCR’s high commissioner, recounted two visits to Sudan earlier this year, describing conditions there as “apocalyptic” and urging donors to fill the “severely underfunded” response plan.

“I can, frankly, hardly think of any other conflict where our, by now, chronic inability to bring about peace … is more in evidence than the Sudan conflict,” he said.

“If people don’t die because of bullets, they starve to death. If they manage to survive, they must face disease, or floods, or the threat of sexual violence and other horrifying abuse, which if perpetrated in other places would make daily headlines. It doesn’t in this situation.”

With famine declared at a displacement camp in El-Fasher in North Darfur, the UN’s main food relief body, the World Food Programme, is struggling to deliver aid to the country amid blocking by government forces and their Rapid Support Forces paramilitary rivals.

Humanitarian workers operating in Sudan have also been targeted or killed in deliberate attacks.

For Mazou and the UNHCR, opening access to aid in Sudan is of the utmost priority. “For us, it’s first making sure that humanitarian access is granted. We’ve been talking to the parties to the conflict. They know that they have the responsibility, they have accountability that they must provide humanitarian access. But that’s something that we keep on repeating,” he said.

“And then we need to have the resources to make sure that we can carry the humanitarian assistance that’s required to the populations in need in asylum countries first.

“I think it’s important in today’s world to underline the fact that asylum countries are willing to provide asylum, and that’s not the case everywhere,” he added, citing Chad, the CAR, Libya and Egypt.

Disputes, rivalries and buck-passing among developed countries on the issue of hosting refugees has been a matter of chronic concern for the UNHCR.

Grandi, as well as a host of humanitarian leaders, have long cited the contrasting reactions of many European countries to the Syrian and Ukrainian refugee crises as evidence of “double standards.”

European countries positioned on the edges of the continent — including Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy — have engaged, openly or secretly, in violent pushback policies to turn back refugees at their borders, according to a series of reports published by Amnesty International in recent years.

In the years preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many of the countries neighboring the latter had complained of an inability to shoulder the burden of hosting refugees from outside Europe, Mazou said.

But following the outbreak of the war, these countries “received several million” Ukrainian refugees, in a sign that “people do realize that it’s their responsibility to provide asylum” in a crisis, he added.

“That’s something that we must all underline,” Mazou said. “Not only the high commissioner, but a number of humanitarian leaders have stressed the importance of supporting countries regardless of where they’re located, to make sure that the assistance that’s required is provided.”

With the UNHCR drawing on all its resources to meet the mounting demands of refugees fleeing crises around the world, Mazou highlighted international support as the backbone of his agency’s operations.  

“We have to put in place mechanisms, and to respond to the needs of the people,” he said. “We continue to appeal to make sure that the needs of all refugees around the world are responded to, and that we’re in the position of mobilizing for all countries around the world and not just one crisis.”


Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary claims it took control of a strategic western town

Updated 7 sec ago
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Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary claims it took control of a strategic western town

CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group claimed a “sweeping victory” Friday saying it took control of the key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state in a fight that intensified a day earlier.
A victory there by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, would mark a strategic loss for Sudan’s military in its war with the paramilitary force as the territory is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade.
The Sudanese army didn’t immediately comment on its social media channels on whether it lost Al Nahud to its rival.
Sudan’s Culture and Information Minister Khalid Ali Aleisir said on his Facebook account on Friday the RSF committed crimes against defenseless citizens in the town, looting their properties and destroying public facilities.
The RSF said on its Telegram channel Friday that it destroyed vehicles belonging to the army and seized their weapons and ammunition during the battle for Al Nahud. The paramilitary group also claimed that it managed to secure the city’s facilities and markets after defeating the army.
The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of the capital Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.
RSF attacks in Al Nahud have killed more than 300 unarmed civilians, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union said on Facebook on Friday. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that figure.
The Resistance Committees of Al Nahud condemned the RSF attacks, which it said began Thursday morning.
“They invaded the city, stormed residential neighborhoods, terrorized unarmed civilians, and committed cold-blooded murders against innocent civilians whose only crime was to cling to their dignity and refuse to leave their homes to the machine of killing and terror,” the Resistance Committees said Thursday on Facebook.
An army loss of Al Nahud would impact its operational capabilities in Northern Kordofan state, according to the Sudan War Monitor, an open source collaborative project that has been documenting the two-year-war. Al Nahud is a strategic town because it’s located along a main road that the army could use to advance into the Darfur region, which the RSF mostly controls.
Al Nahud also shelters displaced people fleeing from Al-Obeid, Umm Kadada, Khartoum and El-Fasher — the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Darfur Victims Support Organization.
Meanwhile, in North Darfur, the fighting has killed at least 542 people in the last three weeks, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. This figure includes the recent RSF attacks on El Fasher and Abu Shouk displacement camp, which killed at least 40 civilians.
“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Türk i n a statement on Thursday.
Türk also mentioned “extremely disturbing” reports of extrajudicial killings committed by RSF, with at least 30 men in civilian clothing executed by the paramilitary fighters in Al Salha in southern Omdurman.
“I have personally alerted both leaders of the RSF and SAF to the catastrophic human rights consequences of this war. These harrowing consequences are a daily, lived reality for millions of Sudanese. It is well past time for this conflict to stop,” said Türk.
The war in Sudan has killed at least 20,000 people, but the real toll is probably far higher. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries.
Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and warns it could spread further, putting millions at risk of starvation.

Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

Updated 1 min 5 sec ago
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Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

The sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people

TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Friday handed down lengthy prison sentences against former officials, including former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, a senior figure in the opposition Ennahda party, on charges of facilitating the departure of jihadists to Syria over the past decade.
TAP state news agency quoted a judicial official as saying that the sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people.

West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

Updated 58 min 9 sec ago
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West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

  • Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada

JENIN: On a torn-up road near the refugee camp where she once lived, Saja Bawaqneh said she struggled to find hope 100 days after an Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank forced her to flee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the north of the territory since Israel began a major “anti-terrorist operation” dubbed “Iron Wall” on Jan. 21.
Bawaqneh said life was challenging and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive, along with Tulkarm and Nur Shams.
“We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,” she said.
“Nothing is clear in Jenin camp even after 100 days — we still don’t know whether we will return to our homes, or whether those homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
Bawaqneh said residents were banned from entering the camp and that “no one knows ... what happened inside.”
Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada.
In early March, it said it had expanded its offensive to more city areas.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above Jenin’s streets blocked with barriers made of churned-up earth.
Wastewater pooled in the road outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Farha Abu Al-Hija, a member of the Popular Committee for Services in Jenin camp, said families living in the vicinity of the camp were being removed by Israeli forces daily.
“A hundred days have passed like a hundred years for the displaced people of Jenin camp,” she said.
“Their situation is dire, the conditions are harsh, and they are enduring pain unlike anything they have ever known.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders in March denounced the “extremely precarious” situation of Palestinians displaced by the military assault, saying they were going “without proper shelter, essential services, and access to health care.”
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps “has not been seen in decades” in the West Bank.
The UN says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the offensive would last several months and ordered troops to stop residents from returning.
Israeli forces put up barriers at several entrances of the Jenin camp in late April, AFP footage showed.
The Israeli offensive began two days after a truce came into effect in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Two months later, that truce collapsed and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza, a Palestinian territory separate from the West Bank.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 925 Palestinians in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry.

 


Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 02 May 2025
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Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

  • Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza
  • In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.
Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.
Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP.
AFP footage in the aftermath of a strike on Bureij camp showed Palestinians searching for casualties in the rubble of a flattened building.
“They gave us no warning, no phone call — we woke up at midnight to smoke, rubble, stones, and shrapnel raining down on us,” said Mohammed Al-Sheikh, standing among collapsed concrete slabs.
“We pulled out martyrs — bodies and limbs from under the rubble.”
Another six people were killed in a strike targeting the Al-Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, civil defense official Mughayyir added.
In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defense agency reported.
Across the Gaza Strip, at least 21 other deaths were reported in similar attacks, the agency said.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
The war erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli government says its renewed campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge it puts them in mortal danger.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire which had come into effect on January 19.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.
On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse.”
“This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further,” its deputy director of operations, Pascal Hundt, said in a statement.


Desperate children and adults in Gaza struggle to get food as Israel blocks aid

Updated 02 May 2025
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Desperate children and adults in Gaza struggle to get food as Israel blocks aid

  • “Until when will life be like that? We’re slowly dying. We haven’t eaten bread for a month and a half,” said Abu Arar
  • Aid groups have warned that Gaza’s civilian population is facing starvation

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Screaming in anguish as the desperate crowd crushes them against a barrier, young children and adults frantically wave pots and pans at charity workers, begging for a portion of some of the last food aid left in Gaza: Rice.
The chaos at the community kitchen in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Friday was too overwhelming for Niveen Abu Arar. She tried and tried, but the 33-year-old mother of eight didn’t get to the front of the crowd in time. She left with her pot empty, and her eyes full of tears.
“Until when will life be like that? We’re slowly dying. We haven’t eaten bread for a month and a half. There is no flour. There is nothing,” said Abu Arar, whose ninth child, a 1-year-old boy, was killed in an Israeli strike near their home at the start of the war in 2023. “We don’t know what to do … We don’t have money. What do we get for them?”
She cradled a toddler in her lap as she spoke. With no milk to provide, she poured water into a baby bottle and pressed it into her youngest daughter’s mouth, hoping to stave off the baby’s hunger pangs.
With Israel blocking any form of aid — including food and medicine – into Gaza for the past two months, aid groups have warned that Gaza’s civilian population is facing starvation.
Israel has said that the blockade and its renewed military campaign aim to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages it still holds and to disarm. Aid groups stress that blocking humanitarian aid is a form of collective punishment and a violation of international law.
Israeli authorities didn’t immediately respond when asked about accusations that starvation was being used as a weapon of war, but in the past they have accused the Hamas militant group governing Gaza of stealing aid.
In an emergency call with reporters on Friday to discuss Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, aid groups described a territory nearly out of food, water and fuel, with prices for the meager supplies remaining skyrocketing beyond the reach of many.
With nearly the entire population reliant on humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations, warehouses are empty, community kitchens are closing down, and families are skipping meals.
A 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of flour now goes for 1,300 shekels ($360), said Ghada al Haddad, Oxfam’s media coordinator in Gaza.
“Mothers in Gaza now feed their children one meal per day, dinner, so they don’t wake up and complain they are starving,” she said.
Amjad Shawwa, the director of the Palestinian NGO network, said that more than 70 of their community kitchens inside Gaza would close within the week if the Israeli blockade continues.
Israeli airstrikes have also taken out large swaths of Gaza’s agricultural land and livestock, making it nearly impossible for the territory to produce its own food, said Gavin Kelleher, a humanitarian manager with the Norwegian Refugee Council who recently left Gaza. Even fisherman have been targeted, he said, killed in small fishing boats by Israeli naval forces.
“Israel has engineered a situation where Palestinians cannot grow their own food or fish for their own food,” he said.
Kelleher, whose organization coordinates the provision of shelter to Gaza, said that not a single aid group has any tents left to distribute — as 1 million people inside Gaza remain in need of shelter given the devastation caused by the nearly 19-month war.
In Khan Younis, Mustafa Ashour said he had walked for an hour to get to the charity community kitchen, and waiting for another two hours before he managed to get food.
“The situation is hard in Gaza. The crossings are closed. It’s a full siege,” said Ashour, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah. “There is no food. There is no water. There are no life necessities. The food being sold is expensive and very little.”
As for Abu Arar and her family — left without a handout from the charity kitchen — another family in a neighboring tent took pity, and shared their own meager portions of rice.
Keller of the NRC said that if Israel continues its blockade, “thousands of people will die, there will be a complete breakdown of order, telecommunication networks will come down and we will struggle to understand the situation because it will be unfolding in the dark.”