Security

Haitian nationals at a Mexican government immigration office near the port of entry between Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and Nogales, Ariz., wait day after day for appointments with U.S. immigration agents so they can enter. As a result of the Haitian influx and a continuing surge of Central Americans on the Texas-Mexico border, the U.S. government has run out of detention space.  John Burnett/NPR

npr.org - by John Burnett - November 23, 2016

Desperate Haitian immigrants have been massing along the U.S.-Mexico border for months seeking humanitarian relief. In the past year more than 5,000 have sought entry into the United States — a 500 percent increase over the previous year.

After the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, thousands of citizens migrated to Brazil looking for work. But as Brazil has slipped into recession in recent years, many of them have hit the road again, heading north on a 6,000-mile journey to the U.S. border — by every means of conveyance . . .

 . . . The Homeland Security Department announced new rules in September. All Haitians who show up at the border without papers and who don't ask for asylum are now detained.

Aid is strewn across the floor in Urem al-Kubra, on the western outskirts of Aleppo, after Monday’s strike on a convoy of lorries. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

Red Cross president says attack on UN and Red Crescent convoy delivering supplies is unacceptable violation of international law

theguardian.com - by Haroon Siddique, Julian Borger and agencies - September 20, 2016

The United Nations has suspended aid convoys in Syria after an airstrike hit a fleet of trucks carrying food to a rebel-held area near Aleppo on Monday.

The UN humanitarian aid spokesman Jens Laerke said: “As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being, pending further assessment of the security situation.” . . .

. . . The strike on a convoy of Syrian Red Crescent trucks carrying UN-supplied food was described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as a flagrant violation of international law. It took place as a week-old ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US collapsed amid a surge of Syrian government bombing.

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People protest against lack of food, in San Cristobal, Tachira state, on the border with Colombia, earlier this month. Photograph: George Castellano/AFP/Getty Images

Five hundred women pour into markets of Cúcuta to buy toilet paper, flour and other goods as economic crisis in Venezuela deepens

theguardian.com - by Sibylla Brodzinsky - July 5, 2016

Five hundred hungry Venezuelan women have stormed across a bridge into Colombia, defying a year-long border closure in search of basic foodstuffs and goods which are hard to find back home.

Dressed in white T-shirts, the women from the Venezuelan town of Ureña marched up to the barriers manned by members of the national guard. The guardsmen formed a cordon to prevent the women from passing but they eventually broke through, cheering as they ran across the bridge into the Colombian city of Cúcuta.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - BBC - Venezuelan women push past border controls for food

The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, set to take place in Istanbul on 23-24 May 2016, is a global call to action by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.