UN News Today 27 September 2024 |

Lebanon crisis: ‘This is just the beginning’ fear those impacted by deadly escalation

The sudden and massive escalation between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon has created widespread fears that even worse is to come, UN humanitarians said on Friday.

Imran Riza, the UN’s top aid official in Lebanon said that the violence was “the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation” with many there worrying that this was “just the beginning”.

Today across Lebanon, thousands of people in rural communities previously unaffected by Israeli targeting of Hezbollah infrastructure have fled bombardment that has claimed at least 700 lives, injured thousands and uprooted around 120,000 people.

Here’s Mr. Riza now, speaking to journalists in Geneva:

“The health sector is completely overwhelmed at this time; luckily we have managed to get trauma kits and the like in and tried to have them distributed also throughout the country because now the displacement is happening not just in south; for the first 11 months it was mainly the south it was mainly the Bekaa…But now it’s throughout the country.”

The development follows increasingly intense exchanges of fire across the UN-patrolled line of separation between Lebanon and Israel since 7 October when war erupted in the Gaza Strip.

Last week’s extraordinary targeting of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies left hundreds dead and signalled the start of intense Israeli bombardment in Lebanon and retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah.

Thousands killed in ongoing Haiti emergency: OHCHR

To Haiti, where gang violence and a breakdown in law and order has resulted in the killing of more than 3,600 people since January.

A worrying update from the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warns that levels of violence in the Caribbean island nation were similar to those last year – although “extremely serious” violations have claimed victims in new areas including parts of West Department.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned the killings, blaming “senseless criminality”.

Welcoming the deployment of a multinational security mission, he said it needed “sufficient equipment and personnel to counter the criminal gangs effectively and sustainably…(to) stop them spreading further and wreaking havoc on people’s lives”.

According to a new UN human rights office report, Haiti’s gangs have continued to use sexual violence to punish, spread fear and subjugate populations. “Large numbers” of children have also been recruited by the groups, OHCHR said.

To tackle the problem, Mr. Türk urged the Haitian authorities to strengthen the police and other state institutions which he said were “crippled by endemic corruption, including the judiciary, if the rule of law is to be restored”.

Sudan’s victims of widespread sexual violence continue to live in fear

Sudan’s ongoing war has killed thousands but what’s less well known is the staggering level of sexual violence across the country that’s affected millions of women and girls.

UN Women, which has issued an alert about the emergency, said that there are at least 6.7 million victims of gender-based violence in Sudan today. This is well over double the level before conflict erupted 15 months ago.

The abuse is particularly bad in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan and UN Women warned that many attacks go unreported because of a lack of support and fears of stigma and retribution.

Rape and gang-rape is widespread in areas affected by conflict, the UN agency noted, adding that although all parties to the conflict bore responsibility, the Rapid Support Forces opposing Government forces, were identified by more victims.

UN Women also noted that hunger impacts women more than men, with 64 per cent of female-headed households food insecure compared to 48 per cent of male-headed households in 10 states.

“Women and girls are eating least and last,” the UN agency said.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.