By KUNA
Brussels : John Holmes, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said Tuesday that the opening of the Rafah border by Gazans “was a reflection of the despair that people have felt there.” Speaking to reporters here, he noted that the situation in Gaza “is very bad.” It has been bad for a long time but made worse by the recent cut in fuel supply and the closure of the crossing to Egypt, said Holmes pointing that 80 percent of the 1.5 million population of Gaza depends on outside humanitarian aid.
“Our hope is that Israel will relax the economic strangulation of Gaza and will start to allow in supplies on a much more normal basis,” said the U.N. official.
“Of course we also hope that Hams will stop firing rockets into Israel because it is also a breach of international humanitarian law just as the collective punishment of the people of Gaza by Israel,” he said.
Holmes, who is in Brussels to hold talks with EU and NATO officials on humanitarian aid, said the world faced many challenges of man-made disasters such as Darfur, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya “where the situation is deteriorating.” He also warned of a major problem that the world will face in the coming years in rising food prices and food shortage.
He listed rising world population, climate change because it is affecting production in some places and the use of biofuels because it is diverting land for food as the main reasons.
It will affect Asia, Africa and the Middle East, said Holmes, giving an example of Saudi Arabia where food prices have risen very significantly.