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L'Orient-Le Jour
5 days ago
- Health
- L'Orient-Le Jour
"Aid that causes bloodshed" triggers catastrophic humanitarian crisis, NGO warns
BEIRUT — "Aid that causes bloodshed" and "repeated mass displacements" are creating a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, denounced the Danish NGO Danish Refugee Council (DRC), in a press release on Tuesday. Based on a new survey conducted among Palestinians living in Gaza, the DRC stated that the population, "exhausted by extreme famine and multiple displacements, is systematically denied access to humanitarian aid." The interviews conducted by the DRC among Gazans between May 22 and July 27, 2025, in 25 displacement sites — in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, Gaza City, and northern Gaza — exposed the deadly consequences of the humanitarian aid distribution program backed by the U.S. and Israel. The 39 people interviewed, 22 women and 17 men, had been displaced an average of nine times since the start of the war in October 2023, the statement specifies. "No fewer than 70 perecnt of respondents cited extreme weakness caused by famine as a barrier to accessing aid," the NGO wrote. "Physical exhaustion is so severe that many are unable to walk the long distance to distribution sites or to carry heavy loads," the statement reads. The DRC denounced in this context the "aid that causes bloodshed," without naming the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supported by the U.S. and Israel, who is conducting these distributions. "Palestinians trying to access the distribution program (...) reported having witnessed people, including family members, being deliberately targeted, shot at, and killed by soldiers," the release reports. At least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed since the implementation of a new aid distribution system by the GHF on May 27, most by Israeli gunfire, "while searching for food," the UN accused last week. The DRC survey also reveals the inadequacy or even the absence of basic services at displaced persons' reception sites: "Forty-six percent reported receiving drinking water twice a week at their current shelter, and 28 percent said they could only get a hot meal in a communal kitchen once a week. Additionally, 31 percent [12 people] said they had received no services in the month before the interview." An AFP report revealed Monday that more than 80% of Gaza's water-related infrastructure has been damaged by the war, and residents of the occupied Strip can now rely only on erratic supplies. The DRC also analyzes the catastrophic consequences for the mental health of Palestinians in Gaza, "33 percent describing constant fear, 31 percent depression, percent insomnia and nightmares, and 26 perecnt anxiety [and] in 13 percent of cases, respondents described feelings of despair and suicidal thoughts." A man interviewed by the DRC in Khan Younis on July 12 said: "I can't stop thinking about what I've seen: tanks in the streets, people running, tents on fire, children screaming. It's etched in my mind. I keep reliving those images. Even now, I jump at every loud noise." The worsening famine observed in recent weeks in the Palestinian enclave has pushed the total number of Palestinians who have died due to malnutrition to 175 people, including 93 children, as of Aug. 4, 2025. Furthermore, the collapse of Gaza's hospital system has led to the deaths of several thousand people, for lack of treatment for their conditions. The al-Aqsa Flood operation, launched against Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, resulted in the death of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Since then, Israeli reprisals have killed over 60,000 in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas Health Ministry, which the U.N. considers reliable.
Middle East Eye
5 days ago
- Health
- Middle East Eye
Majority of Palestinians are too weak from starvation to access aid, report says
Seventy percent of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing extreme weakness from starvation, hindering their ability to access humanitarian aid, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) said on Tuesday. "The physical exhaustion is so profound that many are unable to make the long journey on foot to distribution sites or carry heavy loads even if they receive assistance," said the organisation in a statement as it released the findings of a survey of Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, Gaza City and North Gaza. "The survey exposes the life-threatening consequences of the American and Israeli-backed distribution scheme and the severe psychological toll on a population with no safe haven," the statement said. The organisation also said Palestinians trying to access the militarised-backed distribution scheme said they witnessed people, including family members, being deliberately targeted, shot, and killed by soldiers.
The Sun
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
US aid cuts may force millions more from homes: Danish NGO
COPENHAGEN: Cuts to global aid budgets spearheaded by the United States could nearly double the number of people forced to flee their homes this year, the Danish Refugee Council warned Tuesday. US President Donald Trump has cut 83 percent of funding for overseas programmes run by development agency USAID, with France, Germany and Britain also slashing their aid commitments. The Danish NGO warned that development programmes directly targeted the issues that force people to flee their homes -- conflict, rights violations, the effects of climate change, and economic crises. 'When funding is suddenly cut, lifelines are cut: The vital services that protect vulnerable communities from violence, hunger, and displacement abruptly disappear, leading to tragic consequences,' the group's Secretary General Charlotte Slente said in a statement. If US funding is fully withdrawn and other donors also decrease aid, the council said, it could lead to a 'staggering' 7.85 million people being displaced this year. The council's projections suggested 3.95 million people would be expected to flee their homes if funding was fully maintained. In a scenario where 50 percent of US aid is cut, the NGO projected a total of 5.75 million would be newly displaced. At the end of April, 122.1 million people were living away from their homes because of war, violence or persecution, according to a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Miami Herald
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
How One Country's Left Halted the Far Right with Tough Immigration Stance
As fears of mass immigration have lifted the fortunes of right-wing populists around the Western world, one place that's not happening is Denmark. There, it is Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrat party that has implemented one of the strictest immigration systems in Europe in one of its most socially liberal countries. In so doing, Denmark has become an example for other nations seeking to strengthen immigration laws-not least the United States, where the perceived softness of the Democratic Party in this area was a key factor in the return of President Donald Trump last year. It also contrasts with much of Western Europe. "What I'm trying to convince most of my European colleagues about is that it has to be a democratic decision who will enter Europe," Frederiksen tells Newsweek in an interview in Copenhagen, a tolerant and cosmopolitan city where a religious group gifts Korans to shoppers barely 100 yards from the seat of power at Christiansborg Palace. Denmark gave asylum to 864 people in 2024-the lowest in 40 years with the exception of COVID-affected 2020-and the stated goal is zero. It is because of being a Social Democrat that she supports tougher immigration laws rather than in spite of it, Frederiksen says. Her argument is that the poor suffer most from overwhelmed schools, gang violence and insecurity resulting from those migrants who do not work or integrate with Danish society. The clearest testament to the success of Danish policies is the perception of would-be migrants themselves. Agob Yacoub is a Syrian of Christian origin who has been in Denmark for nearly 12 years after defecting from the army at the age of 23. He has worked as a social worker and a teacher and has learned Danish. But unlike family members who made it to nearby Sweden and became citizens four years ago, Yacoub's status is still temporary-and precarious. A few years ago, he had a map of Syria tattooed on one arm. He has no plans to get Denmark on the other. "The rules are somehow, like, designed to always make you fail," Yacoub tells Newsweek at his apartment in a diverse Copenhagen suburb where he lives alongside Sudanese, Iraqis, Palestinians and Albanians among others. "They are very good at sending a very bad picture of the system in Denmark that you will not get asylum," he says. "People will rather go to Sweden or Germany or elsewhere." Now he is considering whether to return to Syria after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad late last year-and Denmark would give him up to around $30,000 if he were to go back permanently. Eva Singer, head of asylum at the Danish Refugee Council, tells Newsweek there had been a surge of requests from Syrians looking at possible returns. There is a fundamental problem with the message delivered to asylum seekers in Denmark, she says. On the one hand they were told to learn Danish-not the easiest of languages-to work hard and integrate. On the other, they were told their residence permit must be renewed every year or two with no guarantee it will be. "These two different messages, they clash, and it makes it very difficult for the individual refugee to say, how much should I really put into trying to learn the language and get into the labor market?" she says, acknowledging the broad support the immigration policies have. One victim may have been Denmark's far-right. Morten Messerschmidt, leader of the right-wing Danish People's Party, accepts that its poor opinion poll showing compared with anti-immigration parties in Germany, France or Britain partly results from the Social Democrats adopting policies they once branded xenophobic. "That's not a bad thing," the tall, blond, neatly coutured Messerschmidt says. "It's essentially a very good thing in a political or a parliamentarian system that the best argument wins." For Messerschmidt, the argument has now shifted to the clash of cultures between Islam and traditionally Christian Denmark and to the question of whether people who are already in Denmark either integrate fully with Danish culture or leave. In focus right now is the deportation of immigrants who have committed crimes but who cannot be expelled because of judicial rulings based on European human rights law. It is a challenge for Frederiksen that has echoes of Trump's judicially stymied efforts to deport criminals who entered the United States illegally. Alongside her Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, Frederiksen penned a letter calling on the European Court of Human Rights to make it easier to deport foreign criminals-drawing a backlash from the court's parent body, the Council of Europe, which said: "Debate is healthy, but politicizing the Court is not." Asked whether Denmark could withdraw from the court, Frederiksen says: "That's not what we want to do." She argues that it is a question of democratic control over immigration and that the situation has changed since legal texts on asylum and refugee rights were adopted. "It was all about protecting minorities after the Second World War, especially the Jewish population. And I don't think they had the imagination that the result could be that a person from Afghanistan would enter Denmark and then commit very serious crimes," she says. "Europe is not able to welcome everybody, and maybe most important now, we have to be sure that we can get rid of people again if they don't behave well. It's not a human right to enter Denmark and do a rape and stay. The court has, of course, the right to be a court, but not to be an activist." 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TimesLIVE
15-05-2025
- Business
- TimesLIVE
Danish group to end aid to Tanzania, Burundi, CAR after Trump cuts
The Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a major humanitarian group, said on Wednesday it will end its relief programmes in six countries and slash 650 additional jobs after the US, its second-biggest donor, cut funding. US President Donald Trump has drastically scaled back foreign aid as part of a review of foreign spending in a move some aid officials say could put millions of lives at risk. The Danish group, which provides assistance to refugees and those displaced by disaster and conflicts, said the US retrenchment would lead to "untold suffering and deaths" in a statement announcing the restructure. "The scale of the current funding crisis demands that DRC adapt, renew itself and prepare for a world where US assistance will not resume," the DRC said in a statement. "Losing our second-largest funding partner will mean a reduced global footprint. Most of all, it is a blow to millions of people displaced by conflict, disaster and climate change." The US previously accounted for 20% of its budget. The group said it would end programmes in six countries — Burundi, Central African Republic, Tanzania, Georgia, Kosovo and Mexico — and remain present in 28 others. Prior to the latest job cuts, the group had already cut 1,300 staff positions since February as a direct consequence of the US funding cuts, it said.
