Humanitarian crisis

“ Resolving the humanitarian crisis. All measures conducive to easing the humanitarian crisis must be encouraged and supported. Humanitarian operations should follow the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and humanitarian issues should not be politicized. The safety of civilians must be effectively protected, and humanitarian corridors should be set up for the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones. ”

“ Parties to the conflict should strictly abide by international humanitarian law, avoid attacking civilians or civilian facilities, protect women, children and other victims of the conflict, and respect the basic rights of POWs. ”

“ It had been discussed with, amongst others, Yolanda Foster of Amnesty International, who had served a stint in Sri Lanka at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, and Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group, who was still in Colombo and also associated with the ICES group. ”

“ As I said at the Human Rights Council, ‘we have no objection to being urged to follow international humanitarian law, which we strive to uphold, with a much better record in this respect than some of our more sanctimonious critics when confronted with terror or the mere suspicion of it’. ”

“ Many accuse those of us who question the idea of military intervention by saying, “You believe that nothing should be done. You’re in that camp that says, ‘We should wash our hands of it and let them get on with it.’” Utter tosh! So much more could be done on the humanitarian front. The refugee camps are desperately short of basic amenities. ”

“ Calls for unimpeded access for international humanitarian relief efforts in the region, in particular in all areas affected by the conflict in order to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population and reaffirms that all parties are bound to comply with the principles and rules of international humanitarian law ”

“ What would these populations do in any case of national crisis—say in a case of serious war or famine or huge bankruptcy of trade or multitudinous invasion by Chinese or Japanese, or of total collapse of credit and industry? With a few brilliant exceptions they would collapse too. They could not feed themselves, clothe themselves, or defend themselves; they could not build shelters from the storm, or make tools or weapons of any kind for their own use; they would be unable to nurse each other in illness or cook for each other in health. ”

“ We're helping nations across the world build these institutions, and we face three challenges as we do so. First of all, there are developing nations, many on the continent of Africa, that are facing extreme poverty and health epidemics and humanitarian catastrophes, and are therefore vulnerable to extremists who take advantage of chaos and instability. ”

“ Global health threats, more frequent and intense natural disasters, spiralling conflict, violent extremism, terrorism and related humanitarian crises and forced displacement of people threaten to reverse much of the development progress made in recent decades. ”

“ Surely they cause misery to so many thousands and thousands of people. And all this humanitarian activity around the world to send supplies is really a commendable act. It helps those who are suffering. But it is the same kind of activity that is responsible for killing millions of people. ”

“ For example, if economic sanctions cause malnutrition or other health problems or collateral damage from bombing or shelling impacts hospitals, schools, orphanages, or refugee camps, the policy may be the ultimate victim. ”

“ Calls on all parties, in particular the M23, to allow safe, timely and unhindered humanitarian access to those in need in accordance with international law, including applicable international humanitarian law and the guiding principles of humanitarian assistance, and to refrain from any violence against civilians ”

“ In Bosnia, the UN's humanitarian relief effort has been sustained under dangerous and frustrating conditions. In many nations, particularly in Africa, UN operations are working to facilitate the transition from civil conflicts to peaceful development. ”

“ Over the last ten years, the number of humanitarian crises has escalated from an average of 20-25 a year to about 65-70, while the number of people affected has risen more than proportionately. The International Red Cross estimates that the number of persons involved is increasing by about ten million a year. ”

“ The psychological moment to prevent such suffering of the masses from ever occurring again is soon after the war. It is a sad comment that the number and untold suffering of millions of human beings seem to have been required for the nationalistic spirit of Europe to be willing to follow international humanitarian ideas toward establishing permanent peace in the world. ”

“ The cheapest way of digging our ditches and working our factories, and sewing our shirts, is of course to continue holding open our flood gates and letting the deluge come. It is the clever policy of our exploiters, and the sentimental policy of the rest of us who love to be let alone, if only we can cover our unconcern with a humanitarian varnish. ”

“ Thus a war between civilized nations means now a rupture of arteries of common life-blood, a stoppage of the agencies of common well-being and advancement, a waste of energies serviceable to common interests—in one word, a general disaster, infinitely more serious than it did in times gone by; and it is, consequently, now an infinitely more heinous crime against humanity, unless not only the ends it is to serve fully justify the sacrifices it entails, but unless also all expedients suggested by the genius of peace have been exhausted to avert the armed conflict. ”

“ Demands also that the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo Albanian leadership take immediate steps to improve the humanitarian situation and to avert the impending humanitarian catastrophe ”

“ Amnesty then goes on to call for a humanitarian truce to allow aid to reach the civilians, ignoring the fact that the government has ensured that such aid has been flowing to them continuously, for the last several years. ”

“ Calls for facilitating, and refraining from placing any impediment to, humanitarian assistance to persons affected by the conflict, including refugees and internally displaced persons, and further calls for facilitating their voluntary, safe, dignified and unhindered return ”

“ Yet your suffering continues. The world must step forward to provide additional humanitarian aid -- and we must strengthen the African Union force that has done good work, but is not strong enough to protect you. ”

“ Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to ensure the full, safe and unhindered access of humanitarian personnel and the delivery of humanitarian assistance to all children affected by armed conflict ”

“ We cannot hope to build a just and humane society at home if we ignore the humanitarian claims of refugees, their lives at stake, who have nowhere else to turn. Our country can be proud that hundreds of thousands of people around the world would risk everything they have--including their own lives--to come to our country. ”

“ The most destructive wars, the inhuman massacres whose memory appals mankind; the scourges of God, the plague and the cholera, never desolated a nation like this famine. Men fell dead daily in the streets and by the wayside, and were flung coffinless into the earth. Whole districts were swept bare as a desert of human life. Men fled from it into exile, dying in multitudes on the sea, or perishing in foreign countries, till a new plague sprung from the stench of their unburied corpses. A population larger than that of some Free States of Europe was destroyed by these inhuman deaths. ”

“ That spirit through wars and national disasters should be the saving spirit in untold suffering among “the countless millions and uncounted generations throughout the civilized world.” “Unfounded charges,” inhumanity’s foul blot, must be and will be removed from the scroll of The American Red Cross, off the escutcheon of the American nation—that the name of humanity’s luminary may shine throughout time as the guiding star in American philanthropy. ”

“ Requests the Secretary-General and relevant international agencies to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the affected civilian population and to assist displaced persons to return to their homes ”

“ Everywhere there are ruins and unburied dead, and shrunken, yellow-faced survivors in a mortal apathy. Here there are robbers, here vigilance committees, and here guerilla bands ruling patches of exhausted territory, strange federations and brotherhoods form and dissolve, and religious fanaticisms begotten of despair gleam in famine-bright eyes. It is a universal dissolution. The fine order and welfare of the earth have crumpled like an exploded bladder. ”

“ We resolve to take further effective measures and actions, in conformity with international law, to remove obstacles and constraints, strengthen support and meet the special needs of people living in areas affected by complex humanitarian emergencies and in areas affected by terrorism. ”

“ With the final victory of these nations over medieval reaction, the humanitarian aspirations, with which I am greatly in sympathy, so long as they do not express them" selves merely in hypocritical, flowery words, will be realized and bear fruit. Anti-national Humanitarianism is just as unfruitful as the anti-humanitarian Nationalism of medieval reaction. ”

“ Humanitarians, then, must expect little, but claim much; must know that they will see no present fruits of their labours, but that their labours are nevertheless of far-reaching importance. Let those who have been horrified by the spectacle of an atrocious war resolve to support the peace movement more strongly than ever ”

“ Furious perhaps that their predictions of a bloodbath were not fuilfilled, they are determined now to make those who escaped suffer by limiting assistance with food, by making them live in tiny tents, by providing them with squalid toilets. And then, with glee, when people fall ill, they can claim that the epidemic their wishful thinking predicted every month last year has finally arrived.
How can people be so wicked? How can people treat others simply as objects, and use them for their own political priorities while pretending to consider only their welfare? ”

“ There were tales not only of natural disaster—drownings, elderly patients trapped in hospitals—but of a collapse of civilization: looting, murder and rape, stores being broken into with impunity, rescue helicopters fired upon, women and children sexually assaulted in the convention center where many of the refugees huddled. ”

“ Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sewn, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed and children scarred.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. ”

“ Today, these standards, and this security, are challenged. Our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering is great, and our responsibilities are clear. ”

“ I hereby commend the plan of the Red Cross to secure a large membership in this country. I hope the American people will prove as patriotic in this respect as are the people of other nations, so that we may be as well prepared as they to render relief in the misfortune of war or to mitigate the suffering caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, mine explosions and other great disasters. ”

“ How often have philanthropists, through a genuine interest for some suffering class or people, advocated measures which by kindling, prolonging, or enlarging a great war would infallibly create calamities far greater than those which they would redress! How often might great outbursts of savage crime or grave and lasting disorders in the State, or international conflicts that have cost thousands of lives, have been averted by a prompt and unflinching severity from which an ill-judged humanity recoiled! ”