News

Aid officials called on the Security Council on Friday to step in to stop the carnage in Gaza as the war enters its sixth month amid a man-made famine, Israel’s constant bombardment, targeted killings of aid workers and Palestinians civilians and “zero accountability” for the perpetrators.

The UN’s top human rights body adopted a resolution on Friday condemning the alleged “use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza”, while also calling for an arms embargo on Israel. 

Israel must make meaningful changes in the way it is fighting in Gaza to avoid civilian casualties while also undergoing “a true paradigm shift” in lifesaving aid delivery, the UN chief said on Friday. 

A $12 million contribution from a UN emergency humanitarian fund will support people impacted by the violence that broke out in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in March. 

The ongoing escalation of the conflict in Myanmar, more than three years after the military takeover, is severely affecting people across the country, with spillover effects in the region, two senior UN officials told the Security Council on Thursday. 

UN officials launched assessment visits to Gaza and its agencies will resume night-time aid deliveries on Thursday after a 48-hour pause following Israeli forces killing seven World Central Kitchen relief workers in a convoy delivering food in the enclave, where intense Israeli bombardment and ground operations continue.

UN humanitarians in Gaza have suspended operations at night for at least 48 hours in response to the killing of seven aid workers from the NGO World Central Kitchen on Tuesay. 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday expressed dismay over the decision by Uganda’s Constitutional Court to uphold the country’s discriminatory Anti-Homosexuality Act, which has already led to hundreds of rights violations.

As hostilities continue in Gaza, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, urged donors not to forget about Palestinians affected by the ongoing war in Syria. 

The killing of seven humanitarians by an Israeli strike in Gaza on Tuesday – 196 overall since hostilities began last October – is “an inevitable result” of the way the war is being fought, said the UN chief.

The destruction of Gaza’s largest hospital following a two-week siege by the Israeli military has “ripped the heart out of healthcare” in the enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, amid renewed concerns about the dangers of delivering aid after seven workers from NGO World Central Kitchen were reportedly killed in an airstrike.

Humanitarians continue to support Haitians affected by rampant gang violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince, while an appeal for the country remains underfunded, the UN said on Monday.  

Israeli forces are blocking aid deliveries into famine-stricken northern Gaza as the five-month-long war grinds on despite recent strong demands from the top UN court and the Security Council for unfettered access for lifesaving food shipments into the enclave and for a temporary ceasefire and the return of all hostages taken in October.

When the landfill in Osaki, in the southwest of Japan, reached capacity, an incinerator was the logical next step. Instead, the town decided to get serious about recycling. Ahead of International Zero Waste day, marked on 30 March, Kasumi Fujita, a town councillor committed to Osaki’s low waste policies, tells UN News what inspired her.

A United States resolution to extend the mandate of an expert panel which monitors sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was vetoed by Russia in the Security Council on Thursday.

Gaza’s health system is ‘barely surviving’ after more than five months of Israeli bombardment, the head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and partners on Thursday appealed for $1.4 billion this year to support more than two million South Sudanese refugees in five African countries and local communities hosting them. 

Immediate and bold action is required to tackle the “cataclysmic” situation in Haiti, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in a report issued on Thursday. 

“What you do makes me cry at night,” 13-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki told the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil in a message that resonates today as the world grapples with climate change.

Insecurity in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has worsened since the end of recent elections, UN Special Representative Bintou Keita told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine said on Wednesday that she was “shocked and appalled by the horrifying reports” of civilians, including small children, being killed and injured by Russian strikes.

While a third of humanity faces food insecurity, an equivalent of one billion meals go to waste every day, a new report by the UN environment agency (UNEP) revealed on Wednesday. One fifth of food is thrown away.

The intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel has included “direct hits” on 212 schools in the enclave, UN-partnered analysis indicated on Wednesday.

An alarming surge in armed violence in areas of Haiti is heightening the risk of a malnutrition crisis in the country, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.

One in three migrant deaths happens while people flee conflict, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday. More than two in three migrants whose deaths have been documented remain unidentified. 

Intense hostilities in Gaza continued on Tuesday between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces with a “double-digit number of children killed overnight” and ongoing aid delivery obstacles that are responsible for near-famine conditions, UN humanitarians said.

Israel’s ongoing restrictions and its new ban on aid deliveries by the largest United Nations agency on the ground in war-torn Gaza are already having a grave impact, the interim UN coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory warned.

Conflict in Yemen entered its 10th year on Monday, as UN humanitarians issued a warning that over half the country’s populations are in desperate need of aid. 

The UN Security Council is poised to convene an emergency meeting at 10am (New York time) on Monday to take up a fresh draft resolution in a bid to stop the war and humanitarian suffering in Gaza on the heels of a United States-proposed text that China and Russia vetoed on Friday.

With “starvation bearing down” on Gaza, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday repeated his call for a sustainable end to the conflict and the release of all remaining hostages – amid “unprecedented and ongoing devastation” in the occupied enclave.