News

With the ‘promise of a better world’ in mind the UN Youth Office has launched an new advocacy campaign – “World Leaders: It’s Time to Let #YouthLead” – calling for greater youth representation in decision-making roles in both the public and private sector, civil society, academia, and the UN. 

As UN chief António Guterres on Monday reiterated his appeal for “maximum restraint” in the Middle East following Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel, independent human rights experts said that the alleged use of artificial intelligence on targets in Gaza by the Israeli military had taken an “unprecedented toll” on civilians, housing and services.

A full year of conflict in Sudan has already caused immense suffering and death but the situation could easily worsen with the news that the warring parties are arming civilians, UN rights chief Volker Türk said on Monday.

Fishing communities in the south of Madagascar are facing sometimes deadly sea conditions due to climate change, but with the help of the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) are finding ways to adapt to the new circumstances they face.

Rape. Murder. Hunger. Corpses filling streets, making it impossible to walk. Sudan was plunged into an ongoing, devastating war one year ago on 15 April, leaving in its wake almost 15,000 dead, eight million civilians on the run, 25 million in dire need of assistance and warnings from humanitarians about famine, aid blockades and a growing list of atrocities on all sides.

Almost 55 million people are facing further food and nutrition insecurity in West and Central Africa during the region’s three-month lean season from June through August, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

UN humanitarians in Sudan issued a fresh alert on Friday about pervasive food insecurity and looming famine.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has warned that poverty is surging and the middle class in Myanmar is “disappearing” amidst worsening insecurity and conflict. 

Russian attacks on cities and towns across Ukraine, including intense and systematic targeting of the energy infrastructure, “have become a daily destructive pattern” in recent weeks, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Thursday. 

People in Gaza are struggling to survive, said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, who was part of a team carrying out an assessment mission on Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis following the Israeli military withdrawal last week.

Financing for sustainable development is at a crossroads and without urgent investment, global efforts to achieve a more just and equitable world by 2030 will fail, the UN deputy chief warned on Tuesday. 

At least 38 migrants - including women and children – died when their overcrowded boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the UN migration agency (IOM) reported on Tuesday.

UN-coordinated food convoys are three times more likely to be denied access to north Gaza than other aid convoys, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, reported on Tuesday. 

UN humanitarians on Monday made clear the emergency response in Haiti’s capital continues despite ongoing insecurity caused by months of gang-led violence there. 

The UN’s overriding mission in Gaza to ‘flood the place with food’ and avert famine, has moved forward this week thanks to Israel’s public pledge to increase the flow of aid, despite signs on Sunday that the feared invasion of Rafah is imminent.

Two aid convoys carrying lifesaving supplies have reached Sudan’s Darfurs for the first time in months, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday, as humanitarians try to avert a “hunger catastrophe”, after nearly a year of heavy fighting.

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.