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International agency Oxfam
today said it is increasing its emergency response in Somalia,
providing water, shelter and other aid to thousands fleeing deadly new
violence in the country's capital.
"War, drought and malnutrition
are thrusting Somalia towards even greater catastrophe. Tens of
thousands are on the move, hundreds of thousands are displaced and more
than three million are in dire need of aid," said Hassan Noor, Oxfam's
Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, just returned from Afgooye a few
miles south of the capital Mogadishu. Many of the 70,000 people who
have fled Mogadishu in the past few weeks are now sheltering in Afgooye.
Some
400,000 people made homeless by years of conflict are now taking refuge
in Afgooye. Working through local partners, Oxfam is providing shelter
and mosquito nets to families who have arrived there in recent days,
and has expanded its water and sanitation system to aid an additional
84,000 displaced people. Oxfam is now supplying water to over 200,000
people in Afgooye and plans to increase its efforts further in the
coming months. The agency's local partner organisations will also soon
begin providing specialist care and food to 9,500 of the most severely
malnourished children and mothers in Mogadishu itself.
Hassan Noor said: "Living
conditions in Afgooye are some of the worst I have ever seen. I
couldn't see a single shelter fit for human beings, and thousands of
people have nothing to sleep under or protect them from the searing
heat and heavy rains. I saw sick children lying on the floor with
diarrhoea and disease. I saw a young girl who had been shot in the
head, fleeing with her family. People told me they expect the situation
to get even worse in the next few weeks - more people are going to be
killed or forced to flee for their lives, and the humanitarian need
here is going to keep rising." Hassan Noor continued: "Local
Somali aid workers, who are working tirelessly to get help to thousands
of people, need support from the rest of the world. The recent fighting
has made the humanitarian crisis in Somalia even worse, at a time when
nearly half the country's population is already in desperate need of
aid. Families are struggling to cope with a lack of food and basic
services, and the worst drought Somalia has seen in more than a decade."
Oxfam
warned that if the new fighting continues, it will become even more
difficult for aid agencies to respond to the enormous needs. Somalia is
already one of the most dangerous places in the world in which to
deliver humanitarian assistance, with 40 aid workers killed since the
beginning of 2008. The agency called on all parties to the conflict to
comply with international humanitarian law and allow aid to be safely
provided to all who need it.
Oxfam
this week flew nine tons of aid into Mogadishu, consisting of blankets,
mosquito nets, plastic sheeting for shelter, 3,500 buckets for storing
and carrying clean water, and medical aid including syringes and
antibiotics. Further deliveries will be made over the coming weeks.
Hassan
Noor is available for interviews on the humanitarian situation in
Somalia. To arrange interviews and for more information, contact:
Andrea Pattison - Oxfam Novib in Nairobi, on +254 736 476 514, andrea.pattison@oxfamnovib.or.ke Alun McDonald - Oxfam GB in Nairobi, on +254 73 666 6663, amcdonald@oxfam.org.uk
Conflict in Somalia - We're providing desperately needed water to 230,000 people.
Oxfam International is a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. We are working across regions in about 70 countries, with thousands of partners, and allies, supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis.
"We welcome the White House's statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur's killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate," said the family of Aysenur Eygi.
The family of the U.S. citizen killed by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank last week issued a statement over the weekend demanding that the Biden administration order an "independent investigation," arguing a probe by Israel's military would not be enough to establish the facts and pursue justice.
The statement from Aysenur Eygi's family was posted to Instagram on Saturday by a friend of Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish American citizen who was volunteering for the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers shot Eygi in the head during a protest against the expansion of unlawful Israeli settlements near the West Bank city of Nablus.
"Like the olive tree she lay beneath where she took her last breaths, Aysenur was strong, beautiful, and nourishing. Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military," the family's statement reads. "A U.S. citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter."
"We welcome the White House's statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur's killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate," the statement continued. "We call on President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties."
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in the wake of Eygi's killing, which sparked global outrage, that "we are deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen" and "have reached out to the government of Israel to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident." The U.S. is Israel's chief diplomatic ally and arms supplier.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), for its part, claimed that soldiers "responded with fire" in the direction of "a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them." The IDF said it is "looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area."
But one eyewitness who was present when Eygi was killed told reporters that "it was quiet" when the deadly shot was fired, contradicting the IDF's account.
"There was nothing to justify the shot," said Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak. "The shot was taken to kill."
Longtime Israeli activist Jonathan Pollack describes the “intentional killing” of American Aysenur Eygi in the West Bank:
“It was quiet. There was nothing to justify the shot. The shot was taken to kill.” pic.twitter.com/2eTOYDEqpI
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) September 6, 2024
Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of Nablus, toldCNN on Saturday that an autopsy conducted at a nearby university "confirmed that Eygi was killed by an Israeli occupation sniper's bullet to her head."
Eygi was at least the third U.S. citizen killed by the IDF in the West Bank since the Israeli military launched its assault on the Gaza Strip following a deadly Hamas-led attack on October 7. The IDF is notorious for refusing to hold its soldiers accountable for massacring civilians, mostly Palestinians.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a statement Friday that "to date, the U.S. has not received satisfactory responses from the Netanyahu government about the two other Americans killed in the West Bank since October 7th, and the Biden administration has not been doing enough to pursue justice and accountability on their behalf."
Van Hollen said he has "repeatedly raised these concerns" with top administration officials, including Blinken.
"The Biden administration must do more to hold the Netanyahu government accountable and use American influence to demand the prosecution of those responsible for harm against American citizens," the senator said Friday. "If the Netanyahu government will not pursue justice for Americans, the U.S. Department of Justice must."
A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry called on Israel's allies to "stop supporting and arming it."
The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes on central Syria late Sunday, reportedly killing more than a dozen people and prompting a furious response from Syrian ally Iran.
"We strongly condemn this criminal attack," Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference in Tehran.
Kanaani went on to urge Israel's weapons suppliers, chiefly the United States and Germany, to "stop supporting and arming it" as its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip spills out across the region. Nearly 40 people were wounded in Israel's strikes on Sunday, according to a Syrian health official, and several are in critical condition.
Citing two unnamed regional intelligence sources, Reutersreported early Monday that the Israeli strikes hit a "major military research center for chemical arms production located near Misyaf."
The facility, according to Reuters, "is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production."
Kanaani denied that the facility hit was connected to Iran.
"What official sources from the Syrian government have announced is that there were attacks on some Syrian facilities, including an attack on a research center affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and the Syrian army," he said.
Civilians were reportedly among those killed and wounded in Sunday's strikes, which came as the world awaited Iran's expected military response to Israel's assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in late July.
Israeli forces have carried out dozens of airstrikes in Syria—including one targeting Iran's consulate in Damascus—since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, which prompted Israel's large-scale assault on Gaza.
Al Jazeerareported that Israeli forces continued to pummel the Palestinian enclave on Monday, bombing "al-Amoudi street in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City." The outlet noted that "at least 10 people have been killed today in attacks across the Gaza Strip."
Unionized machinists are set to vote on the contract on Thursday.
A tentative deal made early Sunday morning between aerospace giant Boeing and the union that represents more than 33,000 of its workers was a testament to the "collective voice" of the employees, said the union's bargaining committee—but members signaled they may reject the offer and vote to strike.
The company and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751 reached an agreement that if approved by members in a scheduled Thursday vote, would narrowly avoid a strike that was widely expected just day ago, when Boeing and the bargaining committee were still far apart in talks over wages, health coverage, and other crucial issues for unionized workers.
The negotiations went on for six months and resulted on Sunday in an agreement on 25% general wage increases over the tentative contract's four years, a reduction in healthcare costs for workers, an increase in the amount Boeing would contribute to retirement plans, and a commitment to building the company's next aircraft in Washington state. The union had come to the table with a demand for a 40% raise over the life of the contract.
"Members will now have only one set of progression steps in a career, and vacation will be available for use as you earn it," negotiating team leaders Jon Holden and Brandon Bryant told members. "We were able to secure upgrades for certain job codes and improved overtime limits, and we now have a seat at the table regarding the safety and quality of the production system."
Jordan Zakarin of the pro-labor media organization More Perfect Union reported that feedback he'd received from members indicated "a strike may still be on the cards," and hundreds of members of the IAM District 751 Facebook group replied, "Strike!" on a post regarding the tentative deal.
The potential contract comes as Boeing faces federal investigations, including a criminal probe by the Department of Justice, into a blowout of a portion of the fuselage on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 jetliner that took place when the plane was mid-flight in January.
The Federal Aviation Administration has placed a limit on the number of 737 MAX planes Boeing can produce until it meets certain safety and manufacturing standards.
As The Seattle Timesreported on Friday, while Boeing has claimed it is slowing down production and emphasizing safety inspections in order to ensure quality, mechanics at the company's plant in Everett, Washington have observed a "chaotic workplace" ahead of the potential strike, with managers "pushing partially assembled 777 jets through the assembly line, leaving tens of thousands of unfinished jobs due to defects and parts shortages to be completed out of sequence on each airplane."
Holden and Bryant said Sunday that "the company finds itself in a tough position due to many self-inflicted missteps."
"It is IAM members who will bring this company back on track," they said. "As has been said many times, there is no Boeing without the IAM."
Without 33,000 IAM members to assemble and inspect planes, a strike would put Boeing in an even worse position as it works to meet manufacturing benchmarks.
On Thursday, members will vote on whether or not to accept Boeing's offer and on reaffirming a nearly unanimous strike vote that happened over the summer.
If a majority of members reject the deal and at least two-thirds reaffirm the strike vote, a strike would be called.
If approved, the new deal would be the first entirely new contract for Boeing workers since 2008. Boeing negotiated with the IAM over the last contract twice in 2011 and 2013, in talks that resulted in higher healthcare costs for employees and an end to their traditional pension program.