humanitarian aid

Catalan NGO made history with first humanitarian sea delivery

Government will give up to €600,000 to UN agencies to help refugees

Red Cross sending three trailers of humanitarian aid expected to help 11,000 people in Eastern Europe

Various entities are gathering long-lasting food, clothes, medical supplies, and defence material to send to Ukraine

Medicines, long-lasting food and warm clothes are the priority of initiative headquartered on Catalan capital's La Rambla

Initiatives will benefit 160,000 people in places such as Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Colombia, and Senegal

The Catalan Government and the regional governments of Sicily and Provence are promoting a manifesto requesting the European Union to meet the challenge of the humanitarian crisis taking place at the Mediterranean Sea. ‘We are all Mediterranean’ aims to strengthen the commitment at regional level to face and solve this crisis, since the EU and the Member State governments “are not up to the challenge”. In addition, the Catalan Government also confirmed the organisation of a summit of Mediterranean regions to be held in July in Barcelona “to work together and see in which way the regions can give a more comprehensive answer” to the drama suffered by so many refugees crossing the sea on fragile boats. In Strasbourg, the Vice President of the Catalan Government, Joana Ortega, invited the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, as well as those of Sicily, Provence-Alps-Cote d’Azur and Western Greece, Rosario Crocetta, Michel Vauzelle and Apostolos Katsifaras, and Lampedusa’s Mayor, Giusi Nicolini, to attend the summit.

On Tuesday, the Catalan Government approved the International Protection Plan of Catalonia, which aims to protect people forced to leave their country for being persecuted. It is the first time Catalonia has its own legal instrument to face the issue of asylum seekers, displaced people and human trafficking victims. This new tool establishes the principles, measures and funding schemes to host and offer protection to people who fled their country due to a grounded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, membership of a social group, gender or sexual orientation. Among other things, the Plan encourages issuing new proposals to improve the legal status of these people, offer them better training, improve their reception, integration and participation.

The Catalan club’s Board have approved the motion to extend the alliance with the UN body until the end of their term in office, which lasts until 2016. FC Barcelona has agreed, as it has done in recent years, to donate €1.5 million euros a year to joint projects with Unicef, which involve the promotion of education and sport among vulnerable children. Barça and the United Nations first joined forces in September 2006. The current deal was due to end in 2014. “We are very satisfied with this alliance”, stated the  Board Spokesman and Secretary, Toni Freixa.

The family of Montserrat Serra has confirmed to CNA the release of the two aid workers. The Catalan Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut, from Madrid, were working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and they were captured in the Ifo2 refugee camp of Dadaab in Kenya on the 13^th of October 2011. MSF has ensured the two workers are “in good health conditions and they are waiting to join their loved ones as soon as possible”. An MSF team is already assisting the two aid workers. It is believed that immediately after the capture Serra and Thiebault were moved to Somalia, where they have been kept prisoners since. During the 645-day ordeal, silence and caution has been imposed by the negotiators.

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) has stated it does not have “any truthful information” about the two Spanish aid workers kidnappers and their objectives. Therefore, MSF has dissociated itself from any “statement or presumption of responsibility related with this case”. After the latest armed actions in Southern Somalia, MSF wanted to clarify that they are not at all involved and that they fear these attacks may put the life of the two MSF workers kidnapped in Dadaab (Kenya) in danger. One of the two women kidnapped is Catalan and the other is from Madrid.

One of the two workers is Catalan. The two women were working as logistics officers for Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Dadaab, in the Ifo refugee camp, near the Somali border. Armed men took the two women away around 1pm (CEST). Kenyan police think they might belong to the Shabaab group, linked to Al-Qaeda. The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed the kidnapping.

Despite exceptional increases for concrete development projects, external relations and international cooperation services and funds were reduced by almost 50% within the plan to reduce public spending in 2011. The Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation decided to increase financial aid to the Horn of Africa to help with the humanitarian crisis that is affecting 13.5 million people.