One in every 33 people (that’s 242 million people) on the planet needed humanitarian assistance in 2022, and most of that aid was coordinated through the UN. Here’s how the UN does it: Coordination: Crisis HQ This week, as the Israel-Palestine crisis erupted on 7 October, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)…
Goris, population 20,000, is a picture-postcard town, sitting in a bowl in the high mountains of southern of Armenia. It’s 25 kilometres to the border with Azerbaijan, to the Lachin corridor. During the last week in September, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the Karabakh region and arrived in Goris, Armenia, necessitating urgent humanitarian action by…
“The Mission strongly condemns such behaviour which is not worthy of United Nations personnel,” MONUSCO said in a statement on Wednesday. Although the UN Mission did not give details, international media reported that eight South African “blue helmets” had been detained over allegations of sexual abuse. Assault and threats The personnel involved were deployed at…
Persons with disabilities face a “shocking lack of support” with no progress in the last decade, despite a huge increase in climate disasters worldwide, the new UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) report states, and that lack of progress could be a violation of international law. Persons with disabilities make up 16 per cent…
Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the AU, told ambassadors in New York that the alignment between the two organizations is particularly relevant for current challenges. “The African conflict landscape is evolving, becoming more complex and often intractable,” he said. He referred to the report on cooperation between the UN and AU on…
The UN Human Rights Council also “strongly urged” Russian authorities to comply with all the State’s obligations under international human rights law. It also called for upholding fundamental freedoms, including those of thought, opinion and expression, and peaceful assembly, “in particular by removing restrictions on diversity in ideas, criticism and dissent as well as associated…
Destructive droughts and heavy rains are causing harm, while melting snow and glaciers heighten flood risks and endanger long-term water security. The UN weather agency’s State of Global Water Resources Report 2022 emphasizes the need to better understand freshwater resources and urges a fundamental policy shift. It calls for enhanced monitoring, data sharing, cross-border cooperation,…
Over a tenth of the population in Gaza, more than 260,000 people, have been displaced since the start of the current conflict on 7 October and the numbers are rising fast. More than 175,000 people are sheltering in schools operated by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, which has some 13,000 staff in the enclave. UNRWA…
The 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Herat at 5:10 AM (00:40 AM GMT) local time, injuring over 100 people, many of whom were taken to hospitals, according to media reports. UN response UN agencies have stepped up support, deploying teams to assess the damage and assist ongoing humanitarian efforts. The UN World…
Ms. Mohammadi has been arrested multiple times, the first arrest being in 2011 for her advocacy for incarcerated human rights activists and their families. In 2015, she was rearrested and sentenced to additional years. She is currently serving a lengthy jail sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison for “spreading anti-State propaganda”, according to a news release…
