Khaled, his wife and three children fled Syria’s Homs five months ago when their home was hit by a rocket. He and his family were inside the building at the time. They survived and escaped across the border but Khaled says the children still have nightmares. They are now living in a ShelterBox tent in Akroum, just two kilometres from the border.

‘God only knows where we would be living if we didn’t have the ShelterBox tent,’ said Khaled.

17 May 2013 - Christian Aid is releasing £100,000 emergency funds to partner organisations in Bangladesh to help them distribute food and provide emergency assistance to vulnerable communities hit by Cyclone Mahasen. Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected, 128,000 homes destroyed and 14 people are dead after heavy rain and cyclone-strength rains hit low-lying coastal regions of Bangladesh on Thursday evening.

The number of Syrian civilians who have fled their country to escape conflict has passed the 1.5 million mark, according to an announcement made by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on the 17th of May. The refugee influx continues on a daily basis and is worsening an already precarious situation, on top of particularly difficult weather conditions.

17-05-2013 Operational Update

Refugees from the fighting in Syria continue to stream into Lebanon. The ICRC is determined to do its part in the effort to help them.

May 17, 2013 by Jim Stipe

Initial reports of damage from Tropical Storm Mahasen indicate that destruction is serious, but less severe than expected earlier in the week. The tropical storm, downgraded from a cyclone as it approached land, appears to have spared vulnerable communities of internally displaced people in Myanmar. Damage in Bangladesh is substantial, but reported loss of life is lower than in previous storms.

The UN refugee agency is prepositioning aid for tens of thousands of Darfur refugees in eastern Chad amid fears heavy rains will cut off access.

Tucked behind a truck depot, the Dewan Begi Settlement, in the Western part of Kabul, is a maze of tents, tarpaulin sheets and ricketty fences. Children in tatters can be seen playing around in the mud, while women come and go between their makeshift houses and the only two water pumps to which this slum of some 190 families has access to. This is only one of over fifty Kabul Informal Settlements (KIS), as they are called, which have popped up in the Afghan capital over the past decade or so.

Au menu:

· Tchad : ouverture d'un sommet sur le développement durable, la pauvreté et le climat (AFP, 11/05/13)

· Le Tchadien Djimet Adoum nommé secrétaire exécutif du CILSS (AFP, 13/05/13)

· Canada provides emergency assistance for refugees and displaced in eastern Chad (CIDA, 13/05/13)

· Nigeria declares 'massive' military campaign on borders (BBC, 15/05/13)

· Greening: We must break the cycle of food shortages in Western Africa (DFID, 15/05/13)

· UN envoy says CAR in 'state of anarchy' (Al Jazeera, 16/05/13)

May 16, 2013 (Bangladesh) – World Concern is responding with emergency food, and plans for shelter and livelihood assistance, in coastal areas of Bangladesh after towns in the Kalapara municipality were battered by Cyclone Mahasen on Thursday, May 16.