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
Then we could have not only a tsunami-style casualty rate as we have seen late last year, but we could see one hundred times that in a worst case.
Then, we also need to have credible Somali institutions being established inside Somalia and local and regional peace agreements to be brokered.
The number one priority is to get to those who have nothing. If we don't, we will become a disaster within a disaster.
With the resources made available today and the commitments that will come in the coming days, we will redouble our collective efforts.
We want to stay as long as we can. As we speak we have had to suspend action in many areas. Tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance because it's too dangerous and it could grow exponentially.
The point here is it could have been avoided. It didn't have to reach these proportions.
We are losing a race against the clock in the small villages,
We stand by the report. The eviction campaign was the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment. ... The important thing now is to look to the future. We have to help these people.
We have seen 2004 and 2005 as the years of disaster,
We have no security for our work. We are witnesses to massive attacks against the civilian population.
We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare, ever.
We're still racing against the clock and we need to get more helicopters, more water, more tents and more money.
We are also assisting the refugees who have fled across the border to Chad. As many of them have been subject to attacks by militia crossing from Sudan, UNHCR is mounting a major logistical operation to establish camps and transfer refugees away from the border zone.
I have received assurances from the government that this will never be repeated and that the government has taken a number of actions to prevent such an event in future. This is good new for us, because we don't want to leave Cote d'Ivoire - we want to stay and continue our effective actions for all the Ivorian people.