Press releases

Millions of poor people across the globe are facing the prospect of a swine flu pandemic without access to potentially life-saving healthcare.

Traumatized, exhausted and half-starved civilians who have fled Sri Lanka’s conflict zone are being housed in camps without decent water and sanitation facilities and with inadequate food supplies, international aid agency Oxfam said today.

The World Health Organization should encourage greater competition between drug companies to ensure poor countries can afford to stockpile medicines effective against swine flu, Oxfam will tell the World Health Assembly this week.

A coalition of 68 aid and human rights groups said the council should make clear to both the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo and the Congolese army that stronger measures to protect civilians are urgently needed during military operations against Rwandan militias.

As poor countries face the full impact of the economic crisis, European governments are falling short by nearly €40bn (USD$55m) on their aid promises and will not meet their 2010 aid target until 2012, a new report from CONCORD reveals.

As thousands of families continue to flee their homes in northwest Pakistan amid clashes between government forces and organized armed groups, Oxfam International has begun providing emergency relief to around 175,000 women, men and children in urgent need of assistance.

While Oxfam recognizes that a solution is needed to halt appalling levels of human rights abuses committed by armed rebels, the answer cannot be action that knowingly increases levels of human suffering

As the UN Security Council meets on May 11th to discuss the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Oxfam International urges the Council not to overlook the needs of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and to put humanitarian imperatives first.

Although there has been significant improvement in people’s livelihoods, and good work has been done to reduce the risks and impacts of future natural disasters, Oxfam calls for more support for the poorest people who survived.

Hundreds of thousands of people who survived Myanmar's worst-ever cyclone are facing the prospect of being trapped in debt with little prospect of securing further credit or loans and need urgent help from the international community.

Oxfam is now providing emergency relief to over 36,000 civilians who have fled fighting between Sri Lankan troops and LTTE rebels in the past few days, amid fears for thousands more women, men and children trapped behind rebel lines.

Leaders of the world’s major economies meeting in Washington must urgently address the action rich countries will take on global warming in order to revitalize international climate talks and tackle the serious climate impacts facing vulnerable developing countries.

Atrocities are being committed against villagers in remote areas of Eastern
Congo, where fighting between the Congolese army and the FDLR rebel group
continues.

Over 3.2 million Somalis are in desperate need of emergency assistance, a 77% increase since January 2008. More than one million people have fled their homes in the last two years.

In six years time the number of people affected by climatic crises is projected to rise by 54 per cent to 375 million people, threatening to overwhelm the humanitarian aid system.

Political leaders have admitted that they will probably fail to deliver on promises to halve world hunger by 2015

The G8 Agriculture meeting in Italy is heading for a profound failure with ministers dithering about the bold action needed to tackle the global food crisis. The Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia’s opening promise of “three days that will make history" is sounding very hollow.

More than 75,000 people will die of hunger during the three days that G8 Agriculture Ministers will meet to talk about the food crisis. Oxfam is warning Ministers that the answer to the global food crisis is not increased production in rich countries but support for the world’s poorest farmers.

International aid agency Oxfam GB said today that it has formally submitted its appeal against the Sudanese government’s decision to expel it from northern Sudan, and expressed serious concern at the false allegations that continue to be made against it and other expelled agencies.

Climate talks in June will go nowhere unless rich countries close the gap between what scientists and poor countries say is needed and what they are prepared to deliver warned international agency Oxfam, as negotiations came to a close in Bonn today.