Press releases

Oxfam today expressed deep concern about recent events that could exacerbate Western Sahara tensions and put the region on the brink of armed conflict. These developments include the expulsion from Western Sahara of 73 civilian peacekeepers. Parties must work to resolve 40-year-old conflict.

Rich countries have resettled only 1.39 percent of the nearly five million Syrian refugees, a fraction of the 10 percent of people who need to be urgently offered a safe haven. As wealthy states meet in Geneva on 30 March to discuss the Syria refugee crisis, Oxfam urges them to redouble their efforts and offer their ‘fair share’ of support to hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Oxfam has today suspended all of its operations in the Moria camp, on the Greek island of Lesvos, in response to the deteriorating treatment of migrants due to the recent deal struck between the EU and Turkey. The Greek authorities are transforming reception facilities into detention centers, where people will be held pending their mass return to Turkey.

A year of devastating conflict in Yemen which has seen more than 6,100 people killed, 2.4 million people forced from their homes, and left 21.2 million in dire need of humanitarian aid and is being compounded by a looming banking crisis risks pushing millions into famine.

European border closures and restrictions are dramatically worsening the humanitarian crisis for refugees and migrants and a decision to shift the EU’s responsibility for refugees to Turkey would see the bloc bargaining its core values and abandoning fundamental legal obligations. 

Oxfam strongly condemns the assassination of Nelson García, the second indigenous rights activist to be killed in Honduras in less than two weeks. The ongoing violence against this community is shocking, inexcusable, and must end.
 

Donors and Southern African governments must act swiftly, collaboratively, and generously in responding to the South African Development Community’s (SADC) announcement of a regional drought emergency triggered by El Nino, warn Oxfam, Save the Children and CARE.

Banks in France are relying heavily on tax havens to increase their profits, according to a study based on new data that for the first time allows a proper analysis of the role that tax havens play in European business.

Oxfam supporters around the world are pressuring the backers of the Agua Zarca dam project in Honduras to withdraw, and are urging for an independent investigation into the murder of a local Indigenous leader who opposed the project.

The fifth year of the Syria conflict has been the worst yet for people as warring parties have continued to wreak havoc, increasingly block aid and place more communities under siege.