Aid Groups News

The United States is reviewing "potential terrorist designations" for Yemen's Houthi rebel group in response to its seizure of a cargo ship, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday.Kirby's comment was significant because one of the Biden administration's first acts after taking office in January 2021 was revoking terrorist designations of the Houthis over fears the sanctions they carried could worsen Yemen's humanitarian crisis.The Iran-backed Houthis…

Turkey said on Friday it had sent a ship loaded with field hospital equipment, ambulances and generators to Egypt to treat war casualties from Gaza, where Israeli's devastating siege has caused a humanitarian crisis with medical care collapsing."A total of 51 containers of medical supplies, generators and 20 ambulances, with necessary permissions, were loaded onto a ship from Izmir's Alsancak port and sent to Egypt," Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said."As part of the aid…

A boat carrying more than 1,000 survivors of a highly organized, deadly attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents in northern Mozambique arrived in the port of Pemba on Thursday, a Reuters reporter and a diplomatic source said.Aid workers were at the crowded port to give food to those disembarking from the green and white ferry, while police and soldiers kept control of crowds of people excited to see their relatives rescued after the attack that began last week in Palma, the reporter said.Islamist insurgents have been increasingly active in the surrounding province of Cabo Delgado since 2017…

More than 140 refugees and migrants rescued at sea by the 'Lady Sham' ship have landed in Misrata, Libya, and been taken to a detention centre, United Nations aid agencies said on Tuesday."In Libya's current context, where outbreaks of violence and widespread human rights violations prevail, no rescued refugees and migrants should be returned there," Charlie Yaxley, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, told a briefing.UNHCR denounced "politicking around sea rescues" by European states that have restricted aid groups from conducting missions. More than 200 have already drowned in January and 4,507 have reached Europe by sea despite "bitter cold and great danger", Yaxley said.(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay

Italy has refused to allow a commercial vessel flying an Italian flag to bring ashore rescued migrants, sticking to a hardline policy on new arrivals as it presses European allies to share the burden of hosting an influx of displaced people.A commercial ship that supplies oil platforms off the coast of Libya pulled 66 migrants to safety on Monday, but it was told not to bring them to Italy, an Interior Ministry source said.Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, who oversees the coast guard and the country's ports, said the migrants had been transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel on Tuesday after some of them threatened the lives of the Italian crew.They will be brought to Italy…

Libya's coastguard picked up 301 African migrants on Thursday from two inflatable boats after their engines failed near its western coast, a spokesman said.Libya is a main departure point for migrants fleeing wars and poverty trying to reach European countries, though crossings have dropped sharply since last July due to a more active coastguard supported by the European Union."The coastguard rescued 301 migrants early this morning, including three women and 46 children from 12 different sub-Saharan countries," its spokesman Ayoub Qassem told Reuters."The illegal migrants were on board two big rubber boats," Qassem said. "The engines of the two boats stopped working in the middle of sea."On Wednesday…

Three migrants died in the Mediterranean on Monday night, a German aid group said, during Italian-led rescue operations in which thousands more were pulled to safety from rickety boats. About 5,000 migrants were picked up off the Libyan coast by emergency services, Italy's navy, aid groups and private boats on Monday, and rescues were continuing on Tuesday, according to an Italian coastguard spokesman. "Despite all efforts, three people died from a sinking rubber boat" and rescue boats in the area are struggling to cope, German humanitarian group Jugend Rettet said on Facebook. Jugend Rettet (Rescuing Youth) is one of about nine aid…

Some EU officials say NGOs inadvertently encourage people smuggling; NGOs say they are only trying to save lives. A "ferry service" that encourages people smugglers or an essential humanitarian rescue service that saves thousands of African migrants making a dangerous sea crossing to Europe? This debate among EU officials about the role of aid groups in the Mediterranean highlights their dilemma between the moral and legal obligation of helping those in need, and growing pressure from voters to keep them away. Escaping wars and poverty, more than 360,000 refugees and migrants made it to European shores across the Mediterranean last year. Most of them arrived on EU rescue vessels.

Yemeni government forces and their Arab allies are massing north and south of the Houthi-held Red Sea port of Hodeidah despite United Nations and aid groups warnings that a military operation there would put millions of civilians at risk. Hodeidah port and province is controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthis and has been the entry point for 70 percent of Yemen's food supplies as well as humanitarian aid. The country has been torn by more than two years of civil war that pits the armed Houthi group against the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led Arab alliance. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict and hunger is widespread.

Five migrants are believed to have died when a rubber boat sank off the coast of Libya on Tuesday, aid groups said on Friday, adding that reports earlier this week that many more had been killed were wrong. Probably still in shock after he was taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a 16-year-old Gambian boy told humanitarian workers on Wednesday he was the only survivor of the wreck, Cecile Pouilly, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told reporters. When 140 others disembarked at a different port on Thursday, several identified the boy as having been on the same boat. "So we have pretty good information that this tragedy didn't occur as was initially reported," said Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.

Libya's coast guard intercepted at least 1,131 migrants near the western city of Sabratha over the course of a week, a spokesman said on Saturday. Ayoub Qassem said 431 migrants had been intercepted on four inflatable boats off Sabratha's coast on Thursday and some 700 had been picked up on Jan. 27 from three wooden vessels in the same area. "The illegal migrants are from various sub-Saharan countries and include a big number of women and children," Qassem said of those intercepted on Thursday. Those intercepted on Jan. 27 also included migrants from Syria, Tunisia, Libya and the Palestinian territories, he said, and smugglers had attempted to block the coast guards from taking those migrants from their boats.

Six migrants died and up to 100 more were missing and feared dead after their rubber boat sank in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the president of the Italian unit of aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. A British navy ship rescued 27 people and recovered six bodies about 20 miles from the coast of Libya early on Thursday morning, MSF Italy president Loris De Filippi said. The new disaster adds to a death toll which aid groups had put at 240 for the three days ending on Wednesday, as migrants continue to leave Libya despite rough seas. The migrants were transferred to the MSF ship Bourbon Argos, one of several aid agency vessels operating in the area. Survivors told staff that another 90 to 100 people had also been on board and had died.

The United States called on Iran on Tuesday to send humanitarian relief for Yemen to a U.N. distribution center in Djibouti and criticized plans, reported by Iranian state media, for Iranian warships to escort a cargo vessel directly to Yemen. The Pentagon said it was watching the ship, the Iran Shahed, which Tehran says is carrying humanitarian supplies. Iran's state news agency IRNA said the vessel left on Monday for the Yemeni port Hodaida, which is held by Iran-allied Houthi fighters. "If the Iranians follow U.N. protocol, move the ship to a port in Djibouti, allow the humanitarian cargo they claim is on the ship to be distributed through U.N. channels, then they will have done the right thing in this case," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said. The White House said the U.N.