Jan Egeland Quotes

I think now, we in the international community are belatedly wanting to show our solidarity with the Somali peoples and also do our best to help them move to better times.

We need better coordination on the international side, just as they need better and more effective efforts on the Somali side. We have too many reconstruction and development assistance plans.

I think the biggest challenge for Somalia has been the sense that it is a hopeless case of incomprehensible internal conflicts and there is nothing we can do.

We estimate that humanitarian agencies have access to about 350,000 vulnerable people in Darfur - only about one third of the estimated total population in need.

We receive reports now on a daily basis from our own people on the ground in Darfur on widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights against the civilian population.

In a world full of competing emergencies and disasters, it really helps if there is an international locomotive that can help us bring attention - help us bring resources.

Secondly, the Government of Sudan should commit to the disarmament and control of the Janjaweed militia and ensure that the targeting of civilians ceases immediately.

First there is the search and rescue phase that is now ending. It is a cruel reality.

I have been working, as emergency relief coordinator, on an international scale, very hard to build a wider alliance of partners in assistance efforts.

No amount of humanitarian assistance can protect people from being attacked.

Many access roads are too dangerous for relief workers, preventing them from carrying out assessments or reaching people in need.

Climate change disasters will displace more and more. Those who are most exposed are the poorest.

In the Horn of Africa now, there are tens of thousands dying from the extreme vulnerability they are living in.

Somaliland and Somalia at large have been receiving now hundreds of thousands of returnees that they had to accommodate with very small resources.

It's a cruel reality. But after a week, very few people survive.

I think now Somalia is turning a corner and we can, with the new political development, build on momentum - really build a peaceful future.