Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, Haiti
Occupied Palestinian Territory
The UN and partners continue their efforts to get critical aid to northern Gaza, despite ongoing challenges.
Over the weekend, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) delivered fuel to a bakery in Gaza city. Bakeries in northern Gaza have been unable to operate for several months due to conflict and lack of access. WFP said it will continue to provide wheat flour and other resources, but supplies are running low.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization and its partners delivered more than 19,000 litres of fuel to Al-Ahli Hospital, in northern Gaza, including 5,000 litres for As-Sahabah Hospital.
WHO and partners also transferred three critical patients and their two companions from Al-Ahli to two field hospitals in Rafah, in southern Gaza. The agency says many patients at the hospital are in critical condition, including children and people with severe trauma injuries and amputations. They urgently need referral to the south or medical transfers outside of Gaza for specialized treatment.
Al-Ahli is over capacity and hosting more than 120 patients, with benches and pews in the hospital chapel serving as makeshift beds. WHO says additional beds are urgently needed, as well as essential medicines and supplies, and an emergency medical team to support surgeries.
The agency continues to work to resupply the hospital, expand bed capacity, and facilitate patient referrals, but those efforts are nowhere close to the scale needed. Humanitarian access continues to be hindered and limited due to security challenges, mission denials and delays, and self-distribution of supplies by desperate crowds.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, OCHA reports that a team is assessing the impact of raids by Israeli settlers on at least 17 Palestinian villages and communities in Ramallah, Nablus, and Jerusalem governorates in recent days. Several casualties and displacement have already been reported, as well as damage to agricultural structures. Prior to the attacks, a boy from an Israeli settlement went missing and was later found dead.
Sudan
The Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya, warned that after one year of conflict in Sudan, the world has a very narrow window to act to end the avalanche of suffering engulfing the country.
Speaking in Paris today to the High-level Pledging Event for Sudan and its Neighbours, Msuya said the recent escalation in El Fasher raises the spectre of even great danger to civilians in Darfur.
Across the country, almost half the population – some 25 million people – needs urgent assistance. Msuya said supporting them will require improved humanitarian access in Sudan, as well as scaled-up resources. She told donors attending the conference in Paris that all pledges will help maintain and expand humanitarian operations inside Sudan and throughout the region.
Haiti
Aid organizations in Haiti continue to provide life-saving assistance to people affected by the ongoing violence in the capital Port-au-Prince.
On 12 April, the World Food Programme – through logistics partners and the UN Humanitarian Response Depot – facilitated the transport of 15 metric tons of medical supplies from the Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization to Cap-Haitien, in northern Haiti. The flight was chartered by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, with more air transports planned in the coming days.
Meanwhile, as attacks by armed gangs continue in Port-au-Prince, more residents are fleeing to the provinces for safety, braving gang-controlled routes. Since 8 March, nearly 95,000 people have left the capital, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Most were heading towards Haiti’s southern departments – Grand’Anse, Sud, Nippes, and Sud-est – which already host more than 116,000 displaced people, many of whom fled the capital in recent months.
IOM warns that the provinces lack adequate infrastructure, and host communities do not have sufficient resources to cope with the surge in displacement from Haiti’s capital.