Ahead of an expected closed-door Security Council meeting, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for the urgent deployment, with no further delay, of the Council-mandated multinational security support mission in Haiti. “The reality is that, in the current context, there is no realistic alternative available to protect lives,” the High Commissioner…
“Children are dying from hunger,” he said via videolink, as media reports indicate that at least 20 children have succumbed to starvation in the besieged and bombarded enclave, including most recently a 14-day-old baby. Calling for a plan to address this crisis, he said immediate needs would include using a military access road to northern…
Nearly 8,600 people on the move died in 2023, a 20 per cent increase from 2022, according to the UN agency’s Missing Migrants Project online platform. It details the global movement of people risking their lives to escape conflict, economic crisis and natural disasters, including drought and flooding linked to climate change. IOM says the…
Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council, Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), said that recent arbitrary arrest of Afghan women for alleged Islamic dress code violations was having a chilling effect among the wider female population, “many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said. “The denial of women and…
These are “children who survived bombardment, but may not survive a famine”, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros said on X, formerly Twitter. Accompanying the WHO chief’s warning, video testimony from Kamal Adwan Hospital’s paediatric unit highlighted the massive scale of needs which UN humanitarians and partners have been unable to relieve, citing aid…
The northeast African country is already in the grip of the world’s largest displacement crisis, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, noted. Fighting between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left thousands dead and eight million displaced. A staggering 14 million children are in desperate need…
“Not many architects think that climate change is something that they need to think about, but we’re trying to change that,” says Rosie Paul, co-founder of Bangalore-based architecture firm Masons Ink. “For us, it’s obvious that climate change directly affects the shelter that you’re going to live in, and you need to start building resilient…
The emergency relief agency said that a 14-truck food convoy – the first by WFP since it paused deliveries to northern Gaza on 20 February – was turned back by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) after a three-hour wait at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint. “Although today’s convoy did not make it to the north to…
Citing alarming examples in Aleppo, Grozny, Mariupol, Myanmar, Sudan and Gaza, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, said an “increasingly systematic, massive and arbitrary destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure” during too many conflicts around the world is in blatant violation of international human rights and humanitarian laws. “We have seen or are…
“The sexual abuse and the exploitation of children within the entertainment industry resulting from unethical systems, structures, practices or abuse of power and authority is widespread,” said Mama Fatima Singhateh, the UN Special Rapporteur on sale and sexual exploitation of children. Child performers in the entertainment industry are exposed to sexualized, violent and aggressive environments that…
