News

As the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan continues to be of serious concern, the EU has released €61 million in humanitarian aid to address the needs of vulnerable people in the country, as well as refugees in neighbouring Pakistan.

The new assistance will be provided to humanitarian organisations to deliver life-saving assistance, in particular focusing on water and sanitation, health, food and other essential items.

The EU welcomes the evacuation of a number of EU citizens and other foreign nationals, as well as injured persons via the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

The Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes regions continue to face multiple and overlapping humanitarian crises, aggravated by conflict and climate-related disasters. To help mitigate the consequences, the Commission has allocated additional humanitarian funding of €26.7 million.

The new funding will aim to further strengthen the existing EU humanitarian response to the displaced people by providing cash assistance, shelter, food security and livelihoods assistance, protection, and health.

Following the series of earthquakes that hit western Afghanistan earlier this month, an EU Humanitarian Air Bridge to Herat has landed today, bringing 92 tonnes of essential supplies to help the affected population.

A new EU aid flight has departed today from Copenhagen, carrying 51 tonnes of medicines, medical items, and education supplies on behalf of Unicef to Egypt for people in need in Gaza.

The essential medicines and medical supplies will be used to scale up the humanitarian response in the country, where stocks of life saving items are rapidly depleting and access is severely limited.

President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to the Secretary General of the UN António Guterres on 14 October, in the context of her on-going contacts with regional leaders.