“Persistent impunity fuels continued cycles of violence,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, calling for credible investigations and accountability for perpetrators. Sudan’s national army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia have been fighting each other for control of the country for almost three years. The new report details widespread atrocities committed […]
In an exclusive interview with UN News, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Vanessa Frazier, reflected on the alarming rise in grave violations against children and the urgent need to safeguard their future. “The recruitment and use of children is still one of the most widespread and devastating violations we face. In 2024 alone, […]
Every 13 February marks World Radio Day, a celebration timed to the moment UN Radio first crackled to life 80 years ago. UN News teams have gathered stories from every corner of the world that reveal a simple truth: in places fractured by conflict, disasters or deep digital divides, radio remains a steady, reliable pulse […]
Russian forces have been carrying out strikes on critical infrastructure amid freezing winter temperatures as their full-scale invasion approaches the four-year mark next month. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said the electrical grid was again the target of military activity this past weekend, leading to significant impacts to several regions and nuclear power plant operations. Power lines down The fighting caused […]
Speaking at a donor conference in Washington, DC, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher warned that the brutal conflict, famine and mass displacement are pushing millions of civilians deeper into crisis, while aid access remains severely constrained. Fighting erupted between the once-allied Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in mid-April 2023, spreading […]
Addressing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors, Director General Rafael Grossi said the agency remains focused on preventing a nuclear accident as fighting continues to endanger critical infrastructure. “The conflict in Ukraine is about to enter its fifth year,” Mr. Grossi said. “It continues to pose the world’s biggest threat to nuclear […]
Since the beginning of the civil war in Sudan, tens of thousands of refugees have fled south to the area, carrying with them not only what they could salvage from their homes, but the woes of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. On a sweltering November day, at the start of the dry season, a tall woman […]
The World Health Organization (WHO)’s Deputy Representative to the country Hala Khudari reported on Tuesday that the outbreak, which started in July 2024 in Kassala, has spread to all 18 states of the country. More than 113,600 cases have been registered so far and over 3,000 deaths – a “concerning case fatality rate” of 2.7 […]
Women and children face heightened risks, while operational challenges – including restrictions on female UN staff – threaten life-saving relief efforts. The twin quakes, measuring 6.0 and 6.2, struck on 31 August and 4 September, flattening entire villages in Kunar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan provinces. Mountainous terrain and landslides blocked key roads, leaving air transport […]
“They burned everything,” said one witness of a shelling attack in the Zamzam displacement camp in war-torn Darfur. “They claimed they only wanted to fight soldiers, but they punished the whole community.” The war crimes and human rights violations perpetrated by all parties to the conflict between the military government and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) […]
Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy for the humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on her recent visit to Sudan and neighbouring Chad – a critical entry point for aid and a haven for some 850,000 people who have fled fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. The war […]
Many of the victims were Alawite, a minority community in Syria, which the former ruling Assad family belonged to. Some community members are believed to have been killed in March by forces or individuals loyal to the country’s new leadership, the National Transitional Authority, which is headed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. In response […]
These young deaths are “the latest in the war on children and childhood in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of UN Palestine refugee agency UNRWA, said in a tweet on Wednesday. The toll also includes some 40,00 boys and girls reported killed or injured due to bombardment and airstrikes, at least 17,000 unaccompanied and separated children, […]
Eleonora Servino was on the first UN aid convoy to Suweida, which saw a recent escalation of violence that left many dead and thousands displaced. As the International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief of mission to Syria, Ms. Servino said the difference on the road to Bosra is stark. “You know that feeling when you […]
The development comes as UN Secretary-General António Guterres cautioned that conflict-driven hunger is spreading “from Gaza to Sudan and beyond”. “Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war,” he said in a video message to the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake in Addis Ababa. Meanwhile, citing reports […]
Alfred Yekatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona received prison sentences of 15 and 12 years for their roles in brutal attacks against civilians – primarily from the country’s mainly Muslim Seleka population – during the 2013-14 civil war. They were found guilty “beyond any reasonable doubt” of leading and facilitating attacks on civilians in the capital, Bangui, […]
Displaced Haitians are dispersed among the 250 active displacement sites across the country, most of which are informal. Just over a fifth of these sites are managed by humanitarian organizations, meaning that many are living in precarious conditions. In June alone, more than 200 alerts were reported across displacement sites, over 80 per cent of […]
Globally, $1.4 billion of the agency’s programmes are being shuttered or put on hold, UNHCR said in a new report. “We can’t stop water, you can’t stop sanitation, but we’re having to take decisions when it comes, for example, to shelter,” said UNHCR Director of External Relations, Dominique Hyde. “We’re have people arriving on a […]
Since February 2022, both legal and illegal economies in Ukraine have been severely disrupted by the war. The report examines the evolution of organised crime structures in the country and focuses on six distinct areas: drug trafficking and production, online scams and fraud, arms trafficking, economic crime, trafficking in persons, and the facilitation of illegal […]
Tom Fletcher, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said there was no “vocabulary” left to adequately describe conditions on the ground. “Food is running out. Those seeking it risk being shot. People are dying trying to feed their families. Field hospitals receive dead bodies, and medical workers hear stories firsthand from the injured – day after […]