Press releases

At the close of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings in Washington, Chris Stalker, Acting Head of Oxfam International’s Washington office, commented on the week's developments.

Oxfam is responding to a major earthquake off the coast of Ecuador. We will shortly be sending teams to the area to assess the extent of damage and how Oxfam can best assist the Government response.

Deportations of refugees and migrants from Greece to Turkey must be halted immediately and people wanting to seek asylum should not be kept in detention, said Oxfam, Norwegian Refugee Council and Solidarity Now today in Greece. 

The 50 biggest US companies have more than a trillion dollars hidden offshore according to a new report published by Oxfam today. This is more than the entire GDP of countries such as Spain, Mexico or Australia.

Following the abuses revealed in the Panama Papers, world leaders attending the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund this week must seize the moment to take decisive action and help end the era of tax havens, said Oxfam today.

Fifty one of the 68 companies that were lent money by the World Bank’s private lending arm in 2015 to finance investments in sub-Saharan Africa use tax havens, Oxfam revealed today.

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.