It is hard to imagine how much worse the situation could get, but the confrontation in Gaza could see a dangerous escalation in the coming days as Iran threatens to break the Israeli blockade and deliver urgently needed medical supplies and other aid to the coastal strip.

A fire broke out in a refugee camp in eastern Chad Friday, leaving 3,000 people homeless and injuring 10, according to the United Nations (UN) refugee agency United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugees have been living in the camp as a result of the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.

India's northeastern states - geographically and culturally distant from the heart of the Hindu majority country - are referred to as "the seven sisters." Official attempts to improve the economy of the isolated region have largely been a disappointment and several of the states are beset by serious insurgencies. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in New Delhi visited a trade fair intended to promote the region's products and improve its business prospects.

In Kenya, the government and opposition have resumed talks on the dispute over the elections that sparked a month-long wave of violence. Relief officials say the humanitarian toll continues to rise and are calling for a speedy solution. VOA's Scott Bobb reports from Nairobi.

After five days of consultations on the situation in the Gaza Strip, the U.N. Security Council has ended efforts to adopt a statement on the humanitarian situation there and the security situation in both Gaza and southern Israel. From U.N. headquarters in New York, VOA's Margaret Besheer has more.

Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN refugee agency. UNHCR's Somalia representative says if nothing changes, the country will spiral further into lawlessness and rule by warlords. He spoke with VOA's Mandy Clark in London. Here is her report.

The United Nations refugee agency says there are worrying signs that fighting could erupt again among government forces, renegade troops and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province.

The U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Margareta Wahlstrom, says the humanitarian situation in Sudan's western Darfur region is worsening.

Flood situation continues to be grim in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam, uprooting lakhs of people and destroying vast tracts of crops while the Army is called in for relief operations.

In eastern Chad, violence along the Sudanese border has forced more than 100,000 Chadians into camps. Squeezed into these tents and straw huts, they compete for water at the well and a limited number of latrines. Clinics run by international agencies try to contain and treat diseases that circulate in these often waste-infested, tight living conditions.

In Chad, people are still arriving at camps to escape ethnic violence and bandit attacks along the Sudanese border. Humanitarian workers are often the first to reach out to people escaping from burning villages, rape and looting. Because this remote border area in east Chad is considered a high-danger post, most humanitarian organizations do not allow staff to bring their families.

The United Nations humanitarian chief today travelled to Uganda to meet aid workers and local authorities and tour camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) created in the wake of the long-running conflict between Government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).