Uncategorized Archives - Page 57 of 185

Gaza aid ready to roll in once final deal reached

·October 19, 2023·2 min read

Some 3,000 tonnes of supplies have been awaiting entry on the Egyptian side of the crossing since Saturday. On Wednesday, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” for aid delivery. UN chief expected in Cairo UN Secretary-General António Guterres was...

Security Council meets over Israel-Gaza: ‘Very real risk’ of conflict expanding warns top envoy

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·October 19, 2023·10 min read

Mr. Wennesland told the Security Council that he “watched in horror and in real time” as reports of mass casualties emerged from Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. “The circumstances of this catastrophe and responsibility remains and still needs to be clarified. And we will need a fact-based, full...

Israel-Gaza crisis: US vetoes Security Council resolution

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·October 19, 2023·4 min read

While 12 of the Council’s 15 members voted in favour of the Brazilian-led text, one (United States) voted against, and two (Russia, and the United Kingdom) abstained. A ‘no’ vote from any one of the five permanent members of the Council stops action on any measure put before it. The...

World News in Brief: Funds dry up for Afghan quake survivors, child deaths alert in Sudan, diphtheria outbreak in Guinea

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·October 18, 2023·2 min read

That’s the message from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which appealed on Wednesday for $19 million to provide emergency food assistance to those “in desperate need” in the country’s western Herat province. The agency’s deputy director in Afghanistan Ana Maria Salhuana stressed that to assist earthquake survivors WFP “is...

Israel-Gaza: UN chief urges ceasefire, region ‘on the precipice’

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·October 18, 2023·2 min read

Speaking in Beijing, Mr. Guterres said that a ceasefire would “provide sufficient time and space” to realize two essential appeals which he made earlier this week: to Hamas, for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages held in Gaza, and to Israel, to immediately allow aid to enter the...

Explainer: How the UN works behind the scenes during crises

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·October 18, 2023·9 min read

The humanitarian role is what gets a lot of public attention as agreements are secured to arrange for aid to get through to civilians and to protect them, including trying to ensure that international humanitarian law (often called the laws governing war and broadly covered by the Geneva Conventions) are...

World News in Brief: 500 million heading into extreme poverty, Afghanistan quake latest, Darfur deaths mount

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·October 18, 2023·3 min read

Marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Mr. Guterres pointed out that nearly 700 million people are living on less than $2.15 per day and over a billion don’t have access to basic needs like food, water, health care and education. Billions more lack sanitation and access to energy,...

China urged not to repatriate DPR Korea escapees

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·October 17, 2023·2 min read

The experts were alarmed that hundreds of escapees – the vast majority of whom are women – have been sent back, despite repeated appeals by multiple international human rights bodies. Hundreds more reportedly are in detention awaiting the same fate. There are long-standing and credible reports that people returned to...

Gaza-Israel conflict: deepening concern for civilians amid ongoing strikes

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·October 17, 2023·1 min read

The past 10 days of conflict have claimed the lives of 4,200 people, forced more than one million individuals to flee their homes following an order from the Israeli authorities and left large areas in the Gaza Strip “reduced to rubble”, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for...

Sudan: UN expert warns of child recruitment by armed forces

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·October 17, 2023·1 min read

Siobhán Mullally, UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, said unaccompanied children and children from poor families have reportedly been targeted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in the outskirts of the capital Khartoum and elsewhere. They’ve forcibly recruited women and children especially, she warned. Girls have also reportedly...

‘A mountain of hardship’, as Afghanistan suffers yet another earthquake

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·October 17, 2023·1 min read

The latest, 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck areas northeast of Herat city Sunday morning local time. According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of Monday evening local time, two people were reported to have been killed and over 150 injured in the latest quake. In total,...

Libya: Mission chief updates Security Council on flood disaster ‘beyond imagination’

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·October 16, 2023·2 min read

Briefing the Security Council, Abdoulaye Bathily noted the thousands of lives lost by the dam bursts which destroyed whole neighbourhoods after Storm Daniel slammed the region on 10 September. The Special Representative told ambassadors that despite the sense of national unity and compassion shown by ordinary Libyans, the disaster had...