The UN’s humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, met a Ugandan rebel leader wanted for war crimes today.

The United Nations’ top humanitarian official today demanded an immediate moratorium on the use of cluster bombs, a day after the international Red Cross stepped up its campaign against the weapons by calling for their outright abolition.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief said today that sectarian killings are “out of control” in Iraq, with about 100 deaths a day and civilians fleeing neighbourhoods and towns because of the cycle of Sunni-Shiite reprisal attacks.

Sectarian violence, armed militias and death squads have created a situation in Iraq where revenge attacks go unchecked, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official said in Geneva today.

The Sudanese government has launched a major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur in recent days, human rights activists and African Union officials said tonight.

The UN humanitarian chief has accused Israel of “shocking” and “completely immoral” behaviour for dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a ceasefire in its war with Hezbollah was in sight.

UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland warned yesterday that the anger on all sides in the Middle East is the greatest he has seen in two decades of trying to help the troubled region make peace.

UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland tonight called for a three-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to evacuate trapped civilians and replenish supplies to areas cut off by the fighting.

A humanitarian aid convoy could move from Beirut to southern Lebanon tomorrow if the Israeli army gives final approval, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said today.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will lobby Israeli leaders today in an attempt to silence the guns and halt the bloodshed on both sides of the Lebanese border.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief today issued an emergency appeal for £81m (€118.58m) in humanitarian aid to help Lebanon through the next three months following the damage wreaked by Israel’s bombardment of the country.

The top UN humanitarian official today denounced the Israeli airstrikes that have devastated Beirut and southern Lebanon and appealed for safe passage for aid, saying civilians were paying a ”disproportionate price” in the attacks targeting Hezbollah strongholds.

UNITED Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday called for an immediate halt to the escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, but said “there are serious obstacles to reaching a ceasefire or even to diminishing the violence quickly”.

Nearly one third of all casualties in the Lebanon-Israel conflict have been children, according to the United Nations’ emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland.

SUDAN’S Darfur region is facing a new wave of killings and rapes, with fighting between rebel factions displacing thousands of villagers despite a recent peace agreement, the UN humanitarian chief has warned.

International rescue workers today rushed to get medical care, water and shelter to some 650,000 people displaced by Indonesia’s earthquake, aided by the reopening of the airport closest to the disaster zone.

Eight foreign ministers have led a UN Security Council meeting to demand that rebel groups in Darfur join a peace deal signed last week, and warned that the fate of the Sudanese region would be a test for the powerful UN body.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief left a Darfur refugee camp in a hurry Monday after demonstrators – calling for UN peacekeepers – attacked a translator, accusing him of supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, a UN spokeswoman said.

The UN humanitarian chief hurriedly left a Darfur camp for displaced people today when a crowd attacked one of his translators over an apparent mistake, a UN spokeswoman said.

THE UN humanitarian chief travelled to northern Uganda over the weekend to highlight what he called a forgotten humanitarian crisis, with about two million people made homeless and tens of thousands of children abducted in the region's 20-year insurgency.

A year of disasters around the world sparked an unprecedented outpouring of aid, but richer nations still are not giving enough money to tackle lingering humanitarian crises, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief says.

The estimated death toll in South Asia’s earthquake jumped to more than 87,000 today, the one-month anniversary of the disaster, as survivors prepared for the region’s savage Himalayan winter.

THE United Nations almost doubled its emergency aid request for quake-stricken Pakistan to $550 million (€455 million) yesterday as aid workers warned thousands of survivors face death from exposure and disease.

Countries and other donors told the United Nations today they were pledging an additional £300m (€440m) for Pakistani earthquake victims, but UN officials said it was unclear how much was going to combined emergency relief efforts.

Ireland pledged an extra €2m for earthquake relief in Pakistan today, bringing the Government’s total allocation to €5m.

ABOUT 200 desperate people pushed and fought each other for milk, bread and biscuits brought in by mule train yesterday.

Nato was today debating a plan to send hundreds of military engineers to quake-hit Pakistan, as well as medical units to set up a field hospital for the injured there.

THE UN’s top relief official has warned that the aid shortfall for Pakistan’s earthquake victims has led to a logistical nightmare and made the situation worse than after the Indian Ocean tsunami last year.

Rains compounded the misery of millions of homeless victims a week after Pakistan’s worst earthquake and briefly grounded relief flights, while a fresh consignment of aid arrived from archrival India with much-needed medicine and tents.

The Irish Government today pledged €10m to a new United Nations emergency fund for humanitarian aid.

WITH snow falling on parts of Kashmir, the UN's emergency relief chief said yesterday that time was running out for many hungry, homeless survivors of a massive earthquake.

Destruction in the two Pakistan valleys leading out of Muzaffarabad may be worse than in the town itself, the international Red Cross said today after its first helicopter flight over the area devastated by Saturday’s earthquake.

The UN’s emergency relief chief arrived in quake-stricken Pakistan today to survey ongoing aid efforts for the millions affected by last weekend’s natural disaster.

THE west African nation of Niger is suffering “an acute humanitarian crisis” in which children are dying because the world community has ignored appeals for urgent aid, the UN humanitarian chief said yesterday.

A POWERFUL earthquake struck off the west coast of Indonesia late yesterday, sending residents in several countries fleeing in panic fearing that it would cause the region's second tsunami disaster three months on.

Fighting in eastern Congo, where thousands are dying every month, has made the crisis the worst humanitarian situation in the world, overtaking Sudan’s embattled Darfur region, the UN’s humanitarian chief said today.

The UN now estimates that about 180,000 people have died in Sudan’s western Darfur region as a result of violence, disease or malnutrition since October 2003 – ,more than twice the previous estimate.

The United Nations said today that donations for victims of the Indian Ocean disaster were arriving faster than they could be recorded, pushing the amount pledged toward €3bn.

Aid workers in one of history’s largest relief efforts today struggled to get food, water and medicine to survivors of the massive quake and tsunamis that the Red Cross says likely killed more than 100,000 people across Asia and Africa.

Northern Uganda is the world’s biggest neglected humanitarian crisis, with 20,000 kidnapped children, many of them forced to serve as combatants, says the head of UN humanitarian affairs.

A PLANE carrying emergency food and equipment took off for Sudan today where thousands remain in the grip of a humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations humanitarian chief has criticised the Sudanese government for blocking aid workers, food and equipment from reaching the western region of Darfur where two million people desperately need aid.

THE drug-fuelled war in Colombia has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere, with more than two million forced to flee their homes and several Indian tribes threatened with extinction.