Although many “hunger hotspots” are in Africa, fears of famine persist in Gaza and Sudan, where conflict continues to rage, fuelling the regional risk of new hunger emergencies, warned the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). “Once a famine is declared, it is too late – many people will have already…
Choosing the iconic Family Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History in New York to deliver his impassioned plea to grasp the solutions at hand, António Guterres warned that we stand at “a moment of truth”. “In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We…
The inaugural meeting of his 10-member SDG Stimulus Leaders Group, took place as many developing countries are still reeling from repeated economic shocks and debt burdens that far outstrip their ability to pay. The Group advocates at the highest level for equipping developing countries with the financial resources to invest in the 17 SDGs, which…
“We now have five million people in Haiti that are acutely food insecure, of which 1.6 million are classified as facing emergency food insecurity conditions,” said WFP Country Director Jean-Martin Bauer, speaking via videolink to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York. “These are the highest numbers on record. These are the highest numbers we’ve…
Jeremy Laurence described how on 4 June, a group of 63 men and women were publicly subjected to mass flogging at a sports ground in the city of Sar-e-pul for a range of alleged crimes including “running away from home” and “moral crimes”. Close to 50 men and 15 women were reportedly lashed between 15…
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom visited the region for the first time this week to see the dire conditions there for himself. “The staggering scale of the conflict in eastern DRC, the horrific level of violence, and its devastating impact on the children and women I met is heart-wrenching,” said Mr. Bloom. “No child should…
Humanitarians said that “security and humanitarian access conditions” have been further reduced since May because of increased violence in northern and southern Gaza, especially in Rafah, where Israeli forces continue their bombardment and military offensive. “Despite the presence of a system to notify and coordinate humanitarian movements, impediments, delays, and denials of missions continue…
“I leave this job with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is a worse place now than when I joined up in 2021,” Martin Griffiths said in his final briefing to journalists as UN Humanitarian and Emergency Relief Coordinator. He said the international community is not resolving conflicts through dialogue, as envisioned nearly…
Two of the latest fatalities were 16-year-old Ahmed Ashraf Hamidat and 17-year-old Mohammed Musa Al Bitar, both shot “at a distance of about 70 metres while running away after throwing stones and/or Molotov cocktails towards a[n Israeli] military post outside a settlement near Aqabat Jaber, CCTV footage shows”, said the High Commissioner’s Office, OHCHR. The…
In remarks to commemorate the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, Denise Brown also noted that boys and girls in frontline regions have had to spend the equivalent of seven months underground in bomb shelters because of relentless attacks. “I will not stop repeating that the entire international community must never accept as…
