More than 125,000 refugees return to Syria in desperate conditions
Leading calls for the international community to “move from words to action” to help the country’s most vulnerable returnees urgently, the UN refugee agency,...
‘A Syrian-led future’: Security Council highlights priorities ahead
In his briefing, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen underscored the delicate nature of the transitional phase, describing it as a moment of...
Ukraine in grip of third winter of escalating Russian attacks
In a scheduled update mandated by the Council in Geneva, Nada Al-Nashif said that these attacks had led to the deaths of 574 civilians...
MIDDLE EAST LIVE: Security Council set to meet on Syria
While the war in Gaza grinds on with dozens of civilians already reportedly killed and injured so far this year - and as the...
Lebanon: Appeal for $371.4 million to boost life-saving support
Announced at the Grand Serail in Beirut by Deputy Prime Minister Saade el-Shami and UN Humanitarian Coordinator Imran Riza, the appeal extends emergency efforts through...
Young Venezuelan refugees get a fresh start in Trinidad’s schools
When 11-year-old Venezuelan refugee Astrid Saavedra walked into her fourth-grade classroom in Trinidad and Tobago for her first day of school in September, she...
Haiti gangs crisis: Top rights expert decries attacks on hospitals
William O’Neill, who reports to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, highlighted an attack on the Bernard Mevs Hospital in Port-au-Prince on 17...
MIDDLE EAST CRISIS LIVE: Security Council holds emergency meeting on collapse of Gaza health...
The UN Security Council is due to meet in emergency session at 10am in New York on the collapse of health services in Gaza....
World News in Brief: Deaths on the Mediterranean, rights in Venezuela, new Security Council...
Regina De Dominicis – who also heads the agency’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office – issued her plea for action after another small...
Gaza: ‘Every day without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy’
Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stressed that no place and no one in Gaza has been safe since the war began in October 2023.
“As the year...
UNRWA chief renews call for probe into attacks on humanitarians in Gaza
Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini made the appeal in a statement posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.He noted that 15 months after the war...
Major step forward for child protection in Colombia, as politicians ban underage marriage
In November, following several failed attempts, politicians of all stripes approved a bill to overhaul legislation that has been in effect since 1887, reflecting...
Gaza: Hospitals closed, aid denied, civilians trapped
A stark example of this escalation was highlighted by the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who confirmed that the...
UN support continues in Syria and Lebanon
Geir Pedersen has been meeting with French, German and Russian authorities, the UN reported on Monday, which includes engagement with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister...
UN chief hails ‘peacemaker, human rights champion’, former President Jimmy Carter
The Democratic Party icon lived longer than any president in US history, serving one term between 1977 and 1981, going on burnish his reputation...
Gaza: ‘Hunger is everywhere’, babies die from the cold, airstrike on unarmed journalists condemned
In Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes are sheltering in tents, the temperatures are expected to drop further in...
Haiti’s destiny ‘bright’ despite terrifying escalation of violence
Haiti is faced with a multifaceted crisis including rising gang violence, political instability, the displacement of over 700,000 people as well as widespread hunger.UNICEF has...
Indian Ocean tsunami anniversary: A call to safeguard future generations
On Boxing Day – 26 December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia, unleashing a massive tsunami that swept across the...
Only 3 per cent of UN emergency food aid getting to desperate Gazans
At the end of December, a joint UN convoy of nine trucks successfully reached people in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, who had been cut...
Syria: Rights investigators call for protection of evidence, including mass grave sites
A team from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on Syria visited former prisons and detention centres, including the notorious Sednaya and the...
Sudan’s El Fasher siege: UN humanitarians killed as refugee crisis intensifies
In a new report, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) has detailed the catastrophic humanitarian situation unfolding in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s...
Reconstruction and vital repairs underway in Syria, as ‘security conditions’ permit
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters at the daily briefing on Thursday that bakeries in Aleppo are at near full capacity – “but partners report that...
‘Dying hungry and in pain’: An increasingly likely outcome in Gaza
Speaking to correspondents via video link on Thursday, the senior OCHA official underscored the grim reality facing over two million people trapped in Gaza,...
World News in Brief: Migrants Day, hunger in the Arab world, arbitrary arrests in...
Tragically, the year also saw the highest death toll of migrants in transit.
“These challenges are made worse by the rising tide of mis- and...
