Two very different catastrophes in Morocco and Libya united by the \u201cunimaginable trauma\u201d of bereaved families, continue to mobilise the UN\u2019s relief efforts, the Organisation\u2019s top aid official Martin Griffiths said on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called for solidarity with the people of the two countries and spoke of the tragedy of people looking desperately for their loved ones for days on end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Libya, \u201csome have lost 50 or more family members\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immediate deployment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked whether the UN was \u201cready\u201d when disaster struck, Griffiths answered \u201cunequivocally, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told reporters that within 24 hours of the earthquake which shook Morocco\u2019s Atlas Mountain range last Friday, the UN deployed a disaster assessment and coordination (UNDAC) team of 15 people out of Geneva and key staff from the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Need for coordination<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That team was now being redeployed to Libya with the consent of the Moroccan authorities to support essential coordination of the humanitarian response to the deadly floods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t have coordination, there\u2019s chaos. And that loses lives,\u201d Griffiths insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morocco: Second phase<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said that in Morocco, the earthquake had claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Although the early figures were \u201cterrible enough\u201d, they are likely to be overtaken by events as rescuers work through the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He highlighted the country\u2019s \u201cdistinguished history\u201d of building up response capacities in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN humanitarian chief stressed that the response in the country was moving from the initial phase, when the focus is on finding survivors and providing for the internment of those killed, to phase two, where supporting the survivors with aid \u2013 shelter, food, medicine \u2013 becomes the main priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Libya: 900,000 people affected<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Libya, where the UN already had a humanitarian presence on the ground, a \u201ccompletely different catastrophe\u201d unfolded, Griffiths said, that was \u201cappalling, shocking, unimaginable in its consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was speculation that some 20,000 people may have lost their lives in the massive flooding triggered by Storm Daniel over the weekend. Access to the city of Derna, the epicentre of the tragedy, remained difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN relief chief said that 900,000 people in the country had been affected, \u201con top of a situation where 300,000 people in Libya already needed humanitarian aid\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping humanitarians do their job<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Griffiths described the challenges on the ground in the response to the disaster in Libya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those included coordinating with the internationally recognised Government and the de facto authorities in the east, discovering the \u201cfull extent\u201d of the disaster, as floods and torrents have destroyed buildings and sludge was still concealing the \u201clevel of death and need\u201d, as well as \u201cgetting the right aid to the right people at the right time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why coordination is so important,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a bureaucratic issue, it\u2019s a prioritisation issue. Helping key humanitarian agencies to do the job they do so well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urgent appeal<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, the UN launched a flash appeal for Libya just over US$71 million targeting 250,000 people for the next three months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the country, Georgette Gagnon, was leading the organisation\u2019s response efforts and a coordination hub has been established in Benghazi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Griffiths detailed the most urgent needs in Libya: equipment to find people in the sludge and the damaged buildings, shelter, food, clean water and sanitation, as well as key primary medical care, as the threat of cholera looms large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the possibility of opening a maritime route to bring in aid to Derna, as requested by the city\u2019s mayor, made \u201ccomplete sense\u201d, and stressed the urgency of simultaneously supporting people fleeing to the south, away from the disaster area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN relief chief also underscored the need for psychosocial care, a \u201chuge issue\u201d given the extent of the trauma caused by the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMassive reminder\u201d of climate challenges<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Griffiths stressed that in Libya, \u201cclimate and capacity have collided to cause this terrible tragedy\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called the disasters in both countries a \u201cdeeply shocking\u201d and \u201cmassive\u201d reminder of climate and its presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe face a really difficult year ahead and government capacities will be stretched to the limit in both these countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two very different catastrophes in Morocco and Libya united by the \u201cunimaginable trauma\u201d of bereaved families, continue to mobilise the UN\u2019s relief efforts, the Organisation\u2019s top aid official Martin Griffiths said on Friday. He called for solidarity with the people of the two countries and spoke of the tragedy of people looking desperately for their …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":55501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55502,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55500\/revisions\/55502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}