UN News Today 25 March 2025 |

In Gaza, UN aid teams continue vital humanitarian work

The situation for Gazans remains catastrophic because of continuing Israeli bombardment and the ongoing aid blockade, but UN agencies continue doing all they can to help.

That’s the message from the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which has announced the start of a new water trucking project in northern Gaza that’s giving thousands of people emergency access to drinking water.

Agency spokesperson, James Elder, appealed for the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel to be renewed:

“We are counting trucks of lifesaving aid on the wrong side of the border; we are counting countless bodies of children in Gaza. So, at the moment the focus has to be on a ceasefire, has to be on no more evacuation orders, no more displacing a population who are on their knees and of course, an end to indiscriminate attacks upon children and getting that life-saving aid, which was actually making a sizeable difference to a population under historic stress.”

The development comes a day after UN chief António Guterres announced that the organization was being forced to reduce its presence in Gaza – “even as humanitarian needs continue to grow”.

The Secretary-General’s comments followed an apparent Israeli tank strike on a UN compound on 19 March that killed one staffer and wounded five others. Israel has denied responsibility.

Yemen: One in two children severely malnourished after 10 years of conflict

In Yemen, a decade of conflict has proved catastrophic for the country’s children who live under the threat of airstrikes and increasing malnutrition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

Houthi rebels – formally known as Ansar Allah – have been battling Government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition for more than a decade, after they overthrew the country’s President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi in March 2015.

UNICEF supports life-saving health facilities and malnutrition treatment across Yemen, but its activities are only 25 per cent funded this year.

The UN agency will not be able to sustain even minimal services without urgent action from donors, Mr. Hawkins said, speaking from Sana’a:

“We need to move fast. I was in Hudaydah over the past three days, the port city. I went through the western lowlands, where there are people on the streets, on the side of the roads, begging and looking for assistance. They have given up. We cannot give up.”

Earlier this month, the United States launched multiple strikes on Houthi-controlled areas, reportedly in retaliation for targeting merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Mr. Hawkins spoke of the damage he witnessed first-hand in the crucial port city of Hudaydah; he said that eight children had been killed in the most recent airstrikes across northern Yemen.

Sudan’s people uprooted by conflict drag themselves across Chad’s border

Finally, to the Sudan-Chad border, where UN teams have said that a humanitarian emergency is underway, with the number of people fleeing to eastern Chad expected to surpass one million by the end of the year – the result of almost two years of heavy fighting in Sudan between rival militaries.

Many have endured terrible violence and sexual abuse.

The refugees are being housed in 18 refugee camps and other shelters, but this has added to pressures on already neglected communities in eastern Chad, according to the UN Development Programme, UNDP.

To help, the UN agency’s Resident Representative in Chad, Francis James, said that a new centre for women should open in Adre next month. It’s an initiative of the UN    and its purpose is to strengthen ties between host and refugee communities, Mr. James said:

“You have refugees coming over, literally crawling over and stumbling over the border, and you need social protection…but also you need to give them hope…a woman’s centre on the border, that will give opportunities for women to have a safe haven, have counselling, have opportunity for entrepreneur(ship), to build a business, to weave, to sew, make soap and gai n an income.”

Other UN projects include supporting women and girls to go back to school.

UNDP’s Mr. James explained that it was key that classrooms are built close to the refugee camps so that schoolgoers can avoid walking “for kilometres through dangerous zones” where they risk being assaulted.

Daniel Johnson, UN News

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