Humanitarian Aid

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul says he is “prepared to put a hold on funding” for Afghanistan due to Taliban theft.

Residents of the Kherson region in Ukraine find themselves dealing with new hardships thanks to the breach of the Kakhovka Dam on Tuesday, including flooded homes, drowning, disease, and even landmines dislodged by floodwater from the Dnipro River.

Internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in Ethiopia’s Tigray region staged massive demonstrations on Tuesday to protest delays in returning to their homes, the continued presence of hostile tribal militia forces on their lands, and the suspension of humanitarian aid.

The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, said on Friday that over a million polio vaccine doses intended for children have been destroyed during the civil war in Sudan.

Andrii Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, announced on Sunday that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will provide $400 million in aid to Ukraine, including $300 million in oil products plus $100 million in humanitarian assistance.

According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Syrian government troops fought with rebel forces in the region devastated by the earthquakes of February 6 on Thursday night, the first battles in the affected area since the disaster occurred.

The famed Syrian civil defense organization known as the White Helmets on Tuesday condemned the United Nations for its “shocking” decision to work with dictator Bashar Assad on earthquake relief.

Chinese state media on Tuesday was stuffed with articles about the humanitarian aid China is sending to Turkey and Syria in the wake of Monday’s devastating earthquakes, including about $6 million in emergency assistance, a rescue team with 82 members, and satellite surveillance of the affected region.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign affairs announced on Wednesday that the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” will send 10 million Afghanis in aid (about $111,000) to Turkey, and half that amount to Syria, “on the basis of shared humanity and Islamic brotherhood” after Monday’s extremely destructive earthquakes.

The Taliban cannot keep the people of Afghanistan fed and clothed without massive international humanitarian aid, which they might not be getting for much longer if they keep oppressing women, but somehow the junta found time and resources to design and build a prototype “supercar” called the Mada 9.

The United Nations announced on Wednesday that it has suspended certain “time-critical” activities in Afghanistan to protest the Taliban edict barring women from working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs.) Such organizations are heavily involved in delivering food and medicine to the large number of displaced, impoverished, and oppressed people in Afghanistan.

European Union (EU) foreign policy head Josep Borrell on Sunday condemned the Taliban junta for barring women from working for both local and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Save the Children and four other international aid agencies suspended operations in Afghanistan on Sunday after the ban was announced.

The Taliban-controlled central bank of Afghanistan posted several images to Twitter last week showing a large pallet of cash sitting on an airport runway.

In an interview with independent journalist Tera Dahl, Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud denounced the Taliban as no less extreme than the Islamic State and faulted both Western nations and the ousted government of Afghanistan for errors that allowed the Taliban to return to power.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday wrote a letter to the U.N. Security Council proposing the creation of an international “rapid action force” to help police in Haiti combat the gangs that have taken over critical infrastructure and blocked humanitarian aid.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the Taliban has not officially requested assistance in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday that reportedly killed over a thousand people.

The Taliban’s defense ministry on Sunday claimed the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” has amassed a standing army of over 130,000 troops with hopes to bring that number up to 150,000.

No food from international aid groups has entered northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region since Addis Ababa and Tigrayan separatists announced a truce — specifically to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Tigray — in their civil war on March 25, World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

Ethiopia’s 16-month-long civil war observed a ceasefire on Friday after separatist militants from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region agreed to a “cessation of hostilities” proposed by Addis Ababa 24 hours earlier to allow humanitarian aid delivery to Ethiopia, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Daniel Bekele, chief of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, said on Friday that a string of highly unusual and little-discussed police raids this month took at least eight Ethiopian government officials into custody, implicity for human rights violations.

The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted on Thursday to establish a formal presence in Afghanistan to perform “crucial” humanitarian work, effectively establishing a working relationship with the barbaric Taliban regime, although the resolution was careful not to name the Taliban or expressly recognize it as the legitimate ruling power of Afghanistan.

Russian missiles struck an airport near Lviv on Friday – the far-western Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Russian invasion have sought shelter, and hundreds of foreign journalists are based. Lviv is less than 50 miles from the Polish border.

The Chinese Communist government on Wednesday blasted Taiwan for sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and supporting sanctions against Russia, accusing the island of “taking advantage of others’ difficulties” to score political points against Beijing.

A U.S. nonprofit group, comprised of “mostly special operation veterans,” is conducting rescue and humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday his government will “continue resorting to active measures in order to settle this critical situation in Ukraine.”

Samaritan’s Purse International Disaster Relief is taking humanitarian relief to Ukraine as several European Union countries say they are preparing to bring in refugees.

Humanitarian activists and U.N. officials are calling for sanctions against the Taliban to be eased so aid can be rendered to the sick, starving, and soon-to-be freezing Afghan people – but Radio Free Europe (RFE) on Tuesday documented how the Taliban is looting aid programs to pay its officials, and even withholding food to force Afghan civilians into slavery.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday that much of Afghanistan’s population is “hanging by a thread” after the brutal Taliban takeover – and asked member nations to lift sanctions on the very same Taliban, to facilitate humanitarian aid.

The Taliban’s Anas Haqqani was reported to Norwegian police for war crimes over the weekend amid a Taliban delegation visiting the country.  

Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled central bank on Thursday announced the receipt of $32 million in cash from the United Nations, ostensibly to finance humanitarian aid. 

The Houthi jihadist organization in Yemen is persecution Christians and other minorities there, blocking aid to them, months after President Joe Biden de-listed them as a terrorist group, Open Doors USA CEO David Curry told Breitbart News on Thursday.

In a phone conference with reporters on Monday, U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Thomas West said the Biden administration is considering a “roadmap” to normalizing relations with the Taliban regime.

Several United Nations agencies announced on Thursday that they had begun a nationwide humanitarian aid distribution campaign in Afghanistan, about a month after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the organization was working in the country “with the cooperation of the Taliban.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded “effective financial humanitarian support” from the international community for the brutal Taliban regime in remarks on Wednesday.

The Group of 20 (G20) held a video conference on Tuesday at which they agreed the Taliban must be actively involved in distributing humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. The group insisted this concession should not be construed as formal recognition of the Taliban’s legitimacy.

The Biden administration said on Sunday its first face-to-face meeting with Taliban officials since the brutal extremists reconquered Afghanistan was “candid and professional.” Judging by their comments, the Taliban disregarded everything the Biden team said except its promise of humanitarian aid.