Iran war chokes aid corridors, obstructing global relief efforts

• Summary

• Aid routes disrupted by Iran war, delaying shipments

• Dubai aid hub badly affected

• Aid for Gaza and Sudan held up

• Shipments for Africa forced to take lengthy Cape route

GENEVA, March 6 (Reuters) - Key humanitarian air, sea and land ​routes are being constricted by disruption from the war in the Middle East, delaying life-saving shipments to ‌some of the world’s worst crises, 10 aid officials have told Reuters.

The U.S.–Israeli war on Iran entered its seventh day on Friday, convulsing global markets and disrupting supply chains with airspace closures and the halt of shipping through the critical Strait of Hormuz.

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Aid to Gaza and Sudan is grinding to ​a halt and costs are soaring for help to the hundreds of millions suffering hunger crises around the ​world.

“People in dire need of assistance will have to wait longer for food,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, ⁠Director of Food Security at the World Food Programme.

Already, tents, tarpaulins and lamps destined for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories ​of Gaza and the West Bank have become stuck in the supply chain, the International Organization for Migration said.

DUBAI AID HUB ​HOBBLED BY AIR AND SEA RESTRICTIONS

Aid groups say higher operational costs are straining budgets already facing massive donor cuts. The IOM said shipping firms were demanding emergency surcharges of approximately $3,000 per container.

Humanitarian groups stocking goods for rapid regional deployment at warehouses in Dubai’s Humanitarian Hub face challenges moving ​supplies onto transit routes.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies cannot move trauma kits to help the ​Iranian Red Crescent with search and rescue from its Dubai hub, where they sit in a 10 million Swiss franc ($13 million) emergency stockpile, ‌said ⁠Cecile Terraz, a director at the IFRC.

The group cannot move stock through Jebel Ali port - the region’s largest container terminal, which was set on fire by the debris of an intercepted missile - from where cargo normally moves onto planes or into the Strait of Hormuz.

The World Health Organization’s Dubai hub operations are also frozen, regional director Hanan Balkhy said, obstructing 50 emergency ​requests from 25 countries and ​hampering operations such as ⁠polio vaccination.

Ripple effects farther afield are also likely.

Famine-struck Sudan is particularly exposed due to additional restrictions since February 28 on the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance ​to the Red Sea, the UNHCR said.

“We are particularly concerned about Africa,” said a spokeswoman, ​adding that ⁠some cargoes were being sent around the Cape of Good Hope. The route takes up to three weeks longer.

Costs for fuel, transportation and insurance are also rising, and Terraz said the IFRC may have to cut deliveries to the Iranian Red Crescent.

Emma Maspero, ⁠senior manager ​in Copenhagen of the supply division of the U.N. children’s body UNICEF, ​said she hoped flights carrying perishable humanitarian goods such as vaccines could be prioritised amid the airspace restrictions. ($1 = 0.7799 Swiss francs)

Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin ​and Emma Farge in Geneva; Additional reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv and Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen; Editing by Kevin Liffey

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Emma Farge

Thomson Reuters

Emma Farge reports on the U.N. beat and Swiss news from Geneva since 2019. She has produced a string of exclusives on diplomacy, the environment and global trade and covered Switzerland’s first war crimes trial. Her Reuters career started in 2009 covering oil swaps from London and she has since written about the West African Ebola outbreak, embedded with U.N. troops in north Mali and was the first reporter to enter deposed Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh’s estate. She co-authored a winning story for the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize on Russia’s diplomatic isolation in 2022 and was also part of a team of journalists nominated in 2012 as Pulitzer finalists in the international reporting category for coverage of the Libyan revolution. She holds a BA from Oxford University (First) and an MSc from the LSE in International Relations. She is currently on the board of the press association for UN correspondents in Geneva (ACANU).

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