Jan Egeland
Jan Egeland
Jan Egelandis a Norwegian politician, formerly of the Labour party. He has been the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since August 2013. He was previously the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch and the Director of Human Rights Watch Europe. Egeland formerly served as director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Under-Secretary-General of the UN. Egeland also holds a post as Professor II at the University of Stavanger...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 September 1957
CountryNorway
So it's a nightmare trying to reach community after community which are homeless, roofless, without food, without water. It is this race against time I fear we are now losing for many of these outlying villages.
I had, in my capacity as a state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1990s, many contacts with the Somaliland authorities.
I have asked NATO, and I will reiterate that appeal: think bold, think big, think creatively.
There are many countries in the Gulf and elsewhere who have received an enormous windfall from these oil prices, ... their aid would be much more effective if offered through the United Nations.
We're sending around a hat now, we don't know how much is in the hat when it's coming back - in an emergency situation,
NATO is planning to increase its operations further, and will work closely with the Pakistan government and the United Nations in this regard.
It's even more urgent than it was in these other hurricanes or tsunamis.
It's like nature strikes back on people who have treated nature badly and we see hundreds of thousands dead after these last two years and hundreds of millions of livelihoods lost.
They had hardly any roads at all and now they are gone.
It is the first, crude way to get food there. It is not, however, a good way to get water and medicine distributed.
It is unconscionable that the LRA is carrying out these vicious attacks on unarmed humanitarian worker.
It's like a lottery, where there are 50 victimized groups always trying to get the winning ticket, and they play every night and they lose every night.
It will be a marathon sprint throughout the winter where we have to do lifesaving assistance until the snow melts sometime in April.
Conditions here are totally unacceptable. It has to change because people have to live a better life and have a better future.