Japan’s foreign ministry provides around $US90 million a year to about 70 non-governmental organizations giving humanitarian assistance around the world. But the money comes with restrictions and conditions that some of the NGOs find unacceptable. Several are demanding the ministry remove the ban on them travelling to conflict zones such as South Sudan. The ban on ordinary travellers was put in place after 10 Japanese were killed in a hostage crisis in Algeria in 2013 and two were killed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants in Syria in 2015.
