The International Committee of the Red Cross has launched a record appeal to cover its response to increasingly complex humanitarian needs worldwide. The Geneva based organisation is calling on donors for 1.047 billion Swiss francs for field operations - a 12 percent increase on the 2010 budget.
Pakistan's record floods continue to take a massive toll on rural communities in eastern Balochistan, a remote region already reeling from armed violence. As floodwaters slowly recede, an estimated 600,000 displaced flood victims are preparing to return to what is left of their homes.
Today, more than 60,000 IDPs in Mindanao are unable or for various reasons unwilling to return home. In some cases their houses have burned down or their land is occupied by other people, in others they fear for their safety because conflict could resume or violence erupt in connection with the ongoing elections... Clashes between the armed forces of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in August 2008 triggered the displacement of more than 500,000 people. Although most displaced people in Central Mindanao have returned to their homes over the past year, thousands have yet to do so.
Launching a special report on internally displaced people (IDPs), the ICRC points out that an estimated 26 million people had fled their homes as a result of armed conflict by the end of 2008.*
The ICRC Surgical Hospital for Weapon Wounded patients, a 60 bed, tented field hospital, will be formally opened in Peshawar, north-west Pakistan on 29 April. The hospital has been set up to treat the increasing number of people injured as a result of armed conflict in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) and NWFP (North-West Frontier Province). The Hospital will be opened by ICRC President Jacob Kellenberger, who is visiting the region to see for himself the extent to which civilian lives are endangered by the growing conflict in the area.
Conditions for people living in parts of north-west Pakistan have been getting steadily worse because of fighting between government forces and armed opposition groups in Bajaur Agency. Since the beginning of the armed conflict in Bajaur (August 2008), more than 200,000 people have been forced to flee to neighbouring districts in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Around 5,000 families have gone to Afghanistan.