The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 140,000 formerly displaced people have returned to Abyan Governorate in southern Yemen, Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva.

“More than three out of four depended on agriculture for their livelihoods. Clearing agricultural land was therefore critical to ensure their sustainable return,” stated Laerke.

Thousands were uprooted from their homes when fighting erupted in 2011 between government troops and militants in the south of Yemen. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been assisting people to return to their homes after government authority was re-established in Abyan last July.

While most urban areas, connection roads and public areas have been cleared of explosive remnants of war, or ERW, much agricultural land was still contaminated, Laerke noted.

Meanwhile, the Yemen Mine Action Programme, which is working with the Government to clear mines, is facing a budget shortfall of some $7.9 million, nearly 80 per cent of the required funding of $10 million.

The programme has so far destroyed 2,685 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 4,045 unexploded ordinance, 41 anti-tank mines and 76 anti-personnel mines.

According to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), mines and ERW continue to destroy lives, hinder infrastructure, and block access to critical resources, including water and grazing land, as well as causing casualties among men, women and children.

The UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) said fighting resumed last week between the Abbala and Beni Hussein tribes in the Aji Heir area – approximately 10 kilometres west of El Sireaf, where the internally displaced persons gathered.

“Our joint priority with the Government, UNAMID and all partners in the region is to ensure the safety and security of all civilians in the area and to provide much needed humanitarian assistance,” the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Ali Al-Za’tari, said in a statement issued today.

The current humanitarian situation in the El Sireaf locality and in North Darfur follows an outbreak of violence on 5 January between the Abbala and Beni Hussein tribes in the Jebel Amir area of North Darfur, resulting in a mass displacement of more than 100,000 people.

UN and partnering aid organizations delivered over 700 metric tones of food and other relief supplies to the area in the last month, according to the statement.

Mr. Al-Za’tari said the deadly tensions highlight “once again” the vulnerability of civilians in the area and cautioned that more civilians will flee the area unless a lasting solution to the conflict is found.

The latest fighting has reportedly killed more than 50 people and wounded dozens more.

UNAMID said it airlifted 37 wounded people, including a woman and two children, to El Fasher for medical treatment on 24 February, and carried 2,700 kilograms of medical and other supplies.

“I call for the immediate end to the tribal clashes in North Darfur,” UNAMID’s Officer-in-Charge, Mohamed Yonis, said in a press release.

“There is no solution to this conflict other than one that is driven by good-faith efforts toward reconciliation.”

The Mission has been supporting reconciliation initiatives between the two sides and conducting security escorts to facilitate humanitarian access, and has significantly increased the number of daily patrols in North Darfur areas most affected by the violence.

“My hope is that, in the upcoming weeks, the tensions in the area will ease and the reconciliation process will resume,” said Mr. Yonis.

“New arrivals continue to tell us they left their homes because of air strikes and fighting, as well as fears over the application of Sharia law; they also speak of increasing shortages of food and fuel, with traditional markets unable to operate,” a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Adrian Edwards, told a news briefing in Geneva.

“A lack of cereal is pushing breeders to either kill some of their animals as they have nothing else to eat, or to try to sell them. Some refugees are travelling by private car or by truck, while others have arrived from Mali on foot or by donkey,” he added. “Many newly arrived refugees are expecting additional members of their families to join them in the next days from Mali.”

Fighting between Malian Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in northern Mali last January, following which radical Islamists seized control of the area. The renewed clashes in the country’s north, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability in the wake of a military coup d’état in March have uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians over the course of the past year.

Including those displaced this month, some 147,000 Malians have found refuge in neighbouring countries since the crisis in Mali started in January last year, according to UNHCR. Inside the country, 229,000 people have been displaced – mainly from Kidal, Timbuktu, and Gao.

Over the past weekend, a United Nations team arrived in the capital, Bamako, to support the national authorities in their quest to restore Mali’s constitutional order and territorial integrity.

In his remarks to journalists, Edwards said that the immediate needs for the internally displaced, as well as for refugees, are water, food, shelter and medical care.

“Living conditions are particularly precarious for the internally displaced who are in dire need of food, but also need help with education, health, lodging as well as schooling for young children,” the spokesperson said. “UNHCR and our partners are working to address the situation through income-generating activities in Bamako – currently, humanitarian access to other areas of Mali is severely restricted by the security situation.”

More than 4,200 Malian refugees have arrived in Mauritania since 11 January. After being registered, they are being transported further inland to the Mbera refugee camp, which is already hosting 55,221 people from earlier displacements.

In Niger, there are now 1,300 new refugees, Edwards said, adding that during the same period, Burkina Faso received 1,829 new refugees – mainly ethnic Tuaregs and Songhai from the regions of Gossi, Timbuktu, Gao and Bambara Maoude.

The UN refugee agency is providing assistance to refugees in camps in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania by providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene structures, food, adequate shelter, healthcare and education.

Edwards said that between October last year and today, UNHCR has relocated 4,737 refugees from the border of Burkina Faso, and that, in total, the African country is hosting 38,776 Malian refugees.

There are now at least 203,845 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the land-locked West African country.

The revised figure comes as the agency also highlighted a shortfall in fundings: “To date, we have received 41.7 per cent of the $153.7 million we required to assist the Malian refugees and IDPs,” the UNHCR spokesperson, Adrian Edwards, told reporters.

Mali has been dealing with a range of security, political and humanitarian problems since the start of the year. Fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the country’s north in January. Since then, radical Islamists have seized control of the north, where they have imposed an extremist version of Muslim Sharia law.

This instability and insecurity have led many Malians to flee to neighbouring countries, in addition to those displaced internally. In both cases their condition remains critical.

One consequence of the funding shortfall is that UNHCR cannot provide many refugees with professional activities to ensure they are “meaningfully occupied.”

“Schools have not started yet in the camps as school structures are still being built,” Mr. Edwards stated. “UNHCR fears that without schooling, children and adolescents may return to Mali, where there is a risk of recruitment by various armed groups.”

The revised IDP estimates come from the Commission on Population Movement in Mali, a working group under the UNHCR-led Protection Cluster framework. The refugee agency said the revised numbers reflect better access to areas in Mali’s north.

The revised estimates also reflect more accurate counting of IDPs in the capital, Bamako, UNHCR added, praising work done by the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based intergovernmental organization. In Bamako, the number of displaced people was estimated to be 46,000 in September, up from 12,000 in June and July.

Mr. Edwards stressed that indications of “actual new displacement” also exist. He cited reports of people fleeing “because of general insecurity and a deteriorating human rights situation in the north of the country.”

“This is a time of unprecedented change in Myanmar,” said the Director of Operations for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, in a news release, at the end of four-day mission to the Asian nation.

“On the one hand, we see significant progress resulting from the democratization, peace building and economic development processes, while on the other hand, conflict and communal tensions have the potential to undermine stability and generate significant humanitarian needs,” he added.

Despite Government efforts to achieve peace throughout the country, according to OCHA, conflict continues in the northern state of Kachin, while recent ethnic tensions in the western state of Rakhine – between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims – have left at least a dozen civilians dead and hundreds of homes destroyed, as well as at least 64,000 people displaced.

During his visit, Ging met with senior Government official and welcomed the “generally excellent cooperation” between the authorities and humanitarian agencies. However, he voiced grave concern over 14 staff members from the United Nations and other international organizations who were recently detained, calling for their immediate release and for respect for the rule of law and international conventions.

Ging highlighted that aid agencies are currently denied access to tens of thousands of displaced people in Kachin and Rakhine states, and stressed the urgency for respect for humanitarian principles by all parties in order to allow assistance to reach all people in need in all areas of the country.

“It is vital that people’s immediate humanitarian needs are met, while, at the same time, fundamental issues are addressed to prevent future occurrences of communal conflict,” Mr. Ging said after visiting a camp in Thet Kel Pyin and a monastery in Shwe Zayti – both located in Rakhine state – where he met with displaced people and religious leaders.

“Although the situation is extremely fragile, I was encouraged that community leaders on both sides are rejecting conflict as a way of dealing with their grievances and instead are calling for humanity for all and respect for the rule of law,” he said. “This call must be supported and their needs urgently addressed.”

The OCHA official also encouraged donor support for the $32.5 million sought for the Rakhine Humanitarian Response Plan, and noted that $5 million had been allocated from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to enable support to provide basic services for the most vulnerable in the country.

“We hope that donors will respond quickly and that the Government will quickly outline its medium-term plans to ensure that a situation of aid dependency is not created through isolation and separation of communities from each other and their livelihoods,” Ging said. “What people want is security, their grievances addressed and a normal life.”

Launched in 2006 and managed by OCHA, CERF enables the fast delivery of life-saving assistance to people affected by natural disasters and other crises worldwide. It is funded by voluntary contributions from Member States, non-governmental organizations, regional governments, the private sector and individual donors. Since 2006, nearly a third of the $2.6 billion allocated from the Fund has gone to neglected crises in more than 40 countries.