U.N. REMEMBERING FALLEN AND BRAVE HUMANITARIAN WORKERS

Ban Ki-moon with Valerie
Amos (left) and Antony Lake
(Photo Hajat Avdovic
Webpublicapress 2011)

(Webpublicapress/UN News Center) -- August 19^th which has been proclaimed as World Humanitarian  Day three years ago by UN General Assembly to commemorate the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, was commemorated on Friday at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Eight years ago, the lives of 22 UN staff members, including the world body’s top envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello were taken in terrorist attack in Baghdad. Some 150 people were also wounded at that time in Baghdad, the UN has reminded in a written statement.

On the occasion of commemorating the World Humanitarian Day, UN paid homage to humanitarian workers with ceremonies of remembrance for the falle and tribute to thousands of  who brave daily to bring aid to those less fortunate.

Valerie Amos
(Photo Hajat Avdovic
Webpublicapress 2011)

Talking at the General Assembly hall the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-moon also mentioned few recent humanitarian  example for the global solidarity, that still needs to go on “from Japan to Sudan, from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa, (where) aid workers help people who have lost their homes, loved ones and sources of income”.

At the news conference later on at the UN, both Ms. Valerie Amos chief of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affaires (OCHA) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Anthony Lake talked about Horn of Africa crisis.

“With more than 12 million people in urgent need of help in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and particularly Somalia, where drought, conflict and poverty have combined to produce the gravest food crisis in the world”, UN was struggling to help all those in need.

Earlier, the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called upon all those that can help to step forward. “Everybody can be humanitarian”, Ban said.

Bot Amos and Lake said -- the crisis in Horn of Africa had still not peaked and that the UN still needs more than $1 billion for its life-saving operations. The UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban called on governments, civic groups and ordinary citizens to give more for UN humanitarian affairs.