OHCHR said the sharp increase in capital punishment last year was driven by executions for drug-related violations, for crimes people committed as children and for offences not meeting the ‘most serious crimes’.
“The death penalty is not an effective crime-control tool, and it can lead to the execution of innocent people,” said Volker Türk, UN Commissioner for Human Rights.
“In practice, the death penalty is also often applied arbitrarily and discriminatorily, in violation of fundamental principles of equality before the law.”
Geography of death
OHCHR’s monitoring reveals that no one region claimed the monopoly over capital punishment.
In Iran, at least 1,500 individuals were reportedly executed in 2025, with at least 47 per cent relating to drug offences.
In Israel, a series of legislative proposals is seeking to expand the use of the death penalty by introducing mandatory capital punishment provisions that would apply exclusively to Palestinians.
In Saudi Arabia, the reported number of executions exceeded the previous record of 2024, mounting to at least 356 people, where 78 per cent of cases were for drug-related offences. In Afghanistan, public executions continued, in breach of international law.
In the Americas, the United States saw the highest number of executions in 16 years – some 47 inmates who had been on death row.
Further south, at least 24 people were executed in Somalia and 17 in Singapore.
‘Encouraging steps’
However, OHCHR noted that several countries took ‘encouraging steps’ last year to limit capital punishment.
Vietnam reduced the number of offences punishable by death. Pakistan also removed two non-lethal capital offences but still retained 29.
Zimbabwe abolished on 31 December 2024 the death penalty for ordinary crimes, while Kenya initiated a legislative review of capital punishment.
Malaysia’s resentencing process reduced the number of people at risk of execution by more than 1,000 and in Kyrgyzstan, the Constitutional Court reaffirmed the prohibition of the death penalty.
So far, 170 countries have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice.
Most of the exorbitant costs of disaster are preventable with proper funding and planning —one of the main messages for this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, themed Fund Resilience, Not Disasters, observed on Monday.
“Every dollar invested in resilience saves many more in avoided losses and protects the dignity of those most at risk. The choice is ours. We can continue to fund disaster response or we can invest in resilience,” said Amy Pope, chief of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In 2024 alone, nearly 46 million people were displaced by disasters, the highest number ever recorded, but disaster risk reduction efforts remain severely underfunded, according to the IOM.
Preventable disaster costs
“As the climate crisis accelerates, disasters are multiplying and amplifying – devastating lives and livelihoods, erasing decades of development gains in an instant,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his message to mark the Day.
“The cost to the global economy is staggering: an estimated $2 trillion every year, when indirect costs are taken into account.”
Indirect costs include the wider social and ecosystem losses that come as a result of natural catastrophes. Earthquakes, floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves made up 95 per cent of direct costs in the past two decades, according to the report.
“Wildfires in Europe and the Americas, and devastating earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan prove that no country is immune, but the heaviest toll falls on communities already struggling with conflict, poverty, and hunger,” said Ms. Pope.
Different natural catastrophes affect different regions in the world. In South Sudan, annual floods can submerge houses, farmland and schools, forcing people to flee their homes and increasing food insecurity.
As a disaster prevention measure, dykes have been constructed in South Sudan with the support of the IOM, protecting farmland and restoring livelihoods.
Promoting disaster reduction
The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was established in 1989 to foster a global culture of risk-awareness and celebrate how communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters.
“The impact of disasters depends in large part on the choices we make, how strong our infrastructure is, how much we invest in prevention, and how well we protect the most vulnerable,” said Ms. Pope.
With planning and funding, the negative impacts of disasters can be reduced. Accordingly, this year’s Day call is for an increase in disaster risk funding and for the development of risk-adapted and resilient private investment.
Mr. Guterres stressed that for every decision they make, the public and private sectors must take risk into account to minimise exposure and vulnerability to hazards.
“On this Day, let’s commit to meet surging risk with a surge in funds, and build a safer and more equitable future for all,” he said.
The latest Cluster Munitions Monitor reports that over 1,200 people have been killed or injured in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The actual toll is likely far higher, but it may take years to establish, said Loren Persi, team lead for the report.
Drawing parallels with conflicts in Syria and Yemen, where casualty figures emerged only years later, Persi told journalists in Geneva that a similar pattern could unfold in Ukraine.
Lao legacy
Equally, in Lao People’s Democratic Republic, which Mr. Persi described as the most contaminated country by cluster munitions, “it took decades” before surveys confirmed estimates that many thousands of people had been killed or injured by strikes from cluster munitions, which are generally understood to be a container from which submunitions are scattered.
The civil society publication, backed by UN disarmament research agency UNIDIR, notes Israeli allegations that cluster munitions were used in a ballistic missile attack by Iran in June 2025, and of reported but unverified use of the weapons in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
The report’s other findings note that the de facto forces in Myanmar have used “domestically produced”, air-delivered cluster bombs since around 2022, amid the ongoing civil war.
“Schools have been among the targets in rebel-held areas,” said the Monitor research specialist Michael Hart, highlighting their use in Chin state, Rakhine state, the Saigon region and Kachin state, among others.
Mistaken for toys
Submunitions – or bomblets, as they are also known – cause casualties and damage through blast impact, their incendiary effect and fragmentation. According to UNIDIR, a single attack can involve thousands of individual explosive units which are usually spread over hundreds of square metres.
“These munitions can be air-delivered or surface-launched, and can be used against armour, materiel and personnel,” UNIDIR explained, although it is “very clear…that civilians continue to bear the brunt” of suffering from the cluster emission remnants, Mr. Persi insisted.
As in previous years, children accounted for a high proportion (42 per cent) of casualties from the weapons in 2024, “which they often find interesting, think are toys or come across in play or on the way to school or when working in fields”, Mr. Persi continued.
Funding cuts impact
Funding cuts for humanitarian work have had a negative impact on countries impacted by the explosive weapons.
These include Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, which had “made good progress” in clearing contaminated land, but who now “really struggle with funding…to get the clearance done, hence they slow down”, said Katrin Atkins, senior researcher at Cluster Munitions Monitor.
“Whole programmes” supported by USAID in the past including one in Lau have been discontinued, Mr. Persi noted.
“For decades, [the programme] was essential in providing both first aid in remote areas where there are cluster mine victims, which was clearly there to address the legacy of the bombings of the 60s and 70s,” he explained. “But also, the entire rehabilitation programme, including prosthetics… that was cut and as far as we know, not reestablished in any way.”
In the last 15 years since the Convention on Cluster Munitions, just 10 countries have used the weapons and “all of those are States not party to the international accord”, the Cluster Munition Monitor states.
A total of 18 countries have now ceased production of cluster munitions. All former producers are now States Parties to the Convention, aside from Argentina.
The report notes that 17 countries still produce cluster munitions or reserve the right to do so and none is a State Party to the Convention. They are: Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Türkiye and the United States.
Over 41,000 incidents of violence against school-age children were reported by the UN in 2024.
Countries with the highest levels of violations in were Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, notably the Gaza Strip, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Nigeria, and Haiti.
In a message to mark the International Day to Protect Education, commemorated annually on 9 September, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres said that “each violation carries profound consequences, not only for teachers and young learners, but for the future of entire communities and countries,” adding that “no child should risk death to learn.”
The UN chief’s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict for 2024 highlights not only an upsurge in attacks on schools but also a 34 per cent increase in rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children.
In addition, the number of children victims of what the UN calls grave violations increased by 17 per cent as a result of abduction, recruitment, and other types of violence, characterised by the UN as “an alarming escalation in brutality.”
Gaza children deprived of right to education
In Gaza where more than 2.3 million people have been displaced by the two-year-long war, 660,000 children remain out of school and classrooms have been converted into shelters.
“There is no education now. We live inside the school, where we are displaced, eating and sleeping,” said Diana, a child living in Gaza.
Despite the ongoing conflict more than 68,000 children in Gaza have been reached through temporary learning spaces offering education and psychosocial support.
The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is also recycling pallets into school furniture and converting supplied boxes into tables and chairs.
Boys play amidst the ruins of a school in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Barriers to education in Ukraine
In Ukraine, 5.3 million children face barriers to education, and around 115,000 are completely out of school due to the ongoing war.
“1,850 facilities have been damaged since the beginning of the conflict,” said Nelson Rodrigues, Education Specialist at UNICEF.
With many schools on the front lines either closed or operating remotely, over 420,000 children attend school fully online, while one million use a hybrid model.
UNICEF has supported the rehabilitation of 57,000 war-affected school facilities, which has allowed a considerable number of children to return to the classroom.
The UN agency has also provided catch-up and remedial learning, enabling children to recover from disruptions and continue their education.
Meanwhile, between January and July of this year, the UN and its humanitarian partners have supported 370,000 children and teachers, mainly in front-line and host communities.
Respect schools
Parties to conflict anywhere in the world are obliged under international law, to respect schools as places of safety, and hold accountable those responsible for attacks.
“The pen, the book, and the classroom are all mightier than the sword,” said UN Secretary-General Guterres.
“Let’s keep it that way and protect the fundamental right of every child to learn in safety and peace.”
This number represents a 25 per cent increase from 2023, marking the third consecutive year that violations have increased. 22,495 violations were committed against children themselves while the remaining targeted infrastructure such as schools and humanitarian aid intended for and used by children.
“The cries of 22,495 innocent children who should be learning to read or play ball — but instead have been forced to learn how to survive gunfire and bombings — should keep all of us awake at night,” said the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba.
The report only details violations which could be independently verified by the United Nations, meaning the actual number of grave violations and children affected are likely much higher.
‘Children should not be a casualty of war’
The report attributed the increase to indiscriminate attacks — especially urban warfare — in addition to disregard for peace agreements and deepening humanitarian crises worldwide.
“Children living amidst hostilities are being stripped of their childhood … When we allow this to happen, we are not just failing to protect children – we are taking away their chance to grow up safe, to go to school, and to live a life with dignity and hope,” Ms. Gamba said.
In addition to the broader increase, the number of children subjected to multiple grave violations increased by 17 per cent.
The highest number of violations, 8,554, occurred in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories – more than double the number in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which followed.
Governments ‘blatantly’ ignore international law
The report noted that while non-State actors played an out-sized role in violations against individual children, government actors were the main forces responsible for killing and maiming children, attacking schools and hospitals, and denying humanitarian access.
“Instead of recognizing the special protection afforded to children, governments and armed groups around the world blatantly ignore international law that defines a child as anyone under 18,” Ms. Gamba said.
The report listed eight countries whose government forces violated international law and committed grave violations against children — the DRC, Israel, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Russia.
‘A wake-up call’
In 2024, 16,482 children formerly associated with armed forces or groups received protection or reintegration support, but numbers of violations against children still remain staggeringly high.
The Secretary-General called on all Member States to adhere to their obligations under international law by upholding the rights and special protections of children while also expanding services to treat children who are victims of conflict.
Ms. Gamba reiterated this call, saying that the increase in grave violations should be a “wake-up call” and reminding the international community that indifference to such violations will not bring peace.
“We face a choice that defines who we are: to care, or to turn away … We all share the duty to act—with urgency, with determination—to bring this suffering to an end. Not tomorrow. Not someday. Today,” she concluded.
In September 2017, Primrose Thomas was at her home on Barbuda, when disaster struck: two Category 5 hurricanes, Irma and Maria, swept over the islands of the eastern Caribbean, wreaking chaos and destruction.
“The first time I came back, I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t recognize anywhere. I had to ask for directions to my own house.”
Thousands of people in the region found themselves in the same situation as Primrose, and the UN played a major role in helping affected communities get back on their feet.
Click here for more first-hand accounts of the hurricane. UNDP November 2017
In this two-part report – one year on from the hurricanes – we look at the ways in which the Organisation provides aid to those in need and, in a world increasingly affected by the effects of climate change, is finding ways to make the region better able to withstand such events in the years to come.
Part 1: “A paradise turned into Hell”
This is how the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, described Barbuda in the aftermath of the storms: “I have never seen anywhere else in the world a forest completely decimated without one single leaf on any tree…In every community, most of the buildings are destroyed or heavily damaged.”
Irma and Maria were “Category 5” hurricanes, described by the US Government’s National Hurricane Center Website, as winds reaching 157 miles per hour or higher, during which “catastrophic damage will occur”. Irma reached record-breaking sustained speeds of over 183 mph, longer than any other Atlantic hurricane on record.
The most severely affected nations were the two-island State of Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica; but many other Caribbean islands suffered damage, including Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos Islands.
Two category 5 hurricanes swept east to west across the Caribbean in September 2017. The most intense wind speeds were found in the red-highlighted zone.
Haiti and St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Maarten as well as Cuba; the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, were also impacted.
On 6 September 2017, Antigua and Barbuda was battered by Irma, the first of the two mammoth Atlantic hurricanes tearing westward along Hurricane Alley, the name for the body of warm water that stretches from the west coast of northern Africa to the east coast of Central America and the Gulf Coast of the United States.
For the first time in its history, the entire population of Barbuda, some 1,600 people, was evacuated to the larger island of Antigua. Ninety per cent of homes and buildings in Barbuda were affected, 40 per cent of the roads were damaged, and the entire energy distribution network was destroyed.
Dominica also saw 90 per cent of buildings destroyed by the storms, affecting over 70,000 people.
Hurricanes: Dominica Rebuilds (One year on from Irma and Maria)
In the aftermath of Irma and Maria, a UN-wide Crisis Management Unit sent waste management and debris removal experts into the affected areas, opening up roads, collecting garbage, and restoring the water and power networks. Emergency work programmes created temporary jobs and training for affected women and men, quickly injecting cash into communities.
Small businesses were given grants to help them to recover: On the Turks and Caicos Islands, the large majority of MSMEs (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises) were severely impacted by the hurricanes, and the UN supported a wide range of businesses, from pest controllers and farmers, to taxi drivers and people renting out holiday homes.
Like 70 per cent of the inhabitants of South Caicos, Henry Handfield relies on fishing for a living. One of the 40 MSME owners selected for a hurricane relief grant, he says that the $550 received made an impact: “(My boat) was flipped upside down and one portion of it was broken off. The top of the engine was smashed up, the roof was destroyed…all I had was the hull of this boat.” Handfield recalls. “The help I got from UNDP (the UN Development Programme) was very helpful. I was able to take that and put with some other monies to remodel this boat.”
Many families in Dominica were given cash handouts to help them through the period after the hurricanes. UNDPLAC
Financial support also came in the form of an innovative direct cash transfer scheme, which puts money directly in the hands of affected families. Run by the Government of Dominica, the programme is supported by UNICEF and the World Food Programme and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Between December and February 2017, it provided 8,000 of the most vulnerable families affected by Maria with monthly payments ranging between $90 and $239, depending on the number of children in the household.
Yvonne Hill Williams lives in Roseau, Dominica. A shopkeeper and foster carer who also looks after her five grandchildren, Yvonne lost all of her merchandise when the nearby river overflowed during Hurricane Maria. She found that the cash initiative came in handy during a difficult time: “We bought clothes, shoes, and a little shopping and groceries. You feel that you can buy certain things in town. It’s a good feeling…I appreciate it very much.”
In Dominica, the priority for women farmers was to be able to get back on their feet as soon as possible. UN Women facilitated this by providing seeds, labour and equipment to bring their farms back into production as soon as possible.
Eileen Lloyd, of the Bellevue Chopin Farmers Group in Dominica, is one of the beneficiaries. She described the support provided by UN Women as a blessing: “After Maria, it was very difficult to get seeds, and then we were promised some seeds and tools from UN Women and we appreciate them handing them over to us,” she said.
The organisation also worked closely with the UN Population Fund to provide displaced Barbudan women and girls with sanitary items not easily found in relief packages. They distributed “dignity kits”, containing basic health and hygiene products such as soap and sanitary towels.
Women in Dominica were given additional support, including access to cash-for-work programmes, following the devastation caused by the 2017 hurricane season. UNDP/Zaimis Olmos
One year on, the most vulnerable people affected – those with no income or insurance, single people and those with disabilities – risk getting lost in the system. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), has focused on helping the most at-risk communities.
IOM has helped hundreds in Dominica by reconstructing their homes. Wyzell Philogene, a single mother, spent almost a month sharing a space at a friend’s house, along with around 15 others. Her roof was ripped off, and she lost nearly all her belongings. Wyzelle qualified for IOM humanitarian assistance and, a week later, a brand-new roof was erected at no cost to her. She is now able to focus on making a living, through a landscaping job made available through the National Employment Programme, and she is making sure that she is prepared for the next hurricane season.
Wyzell is not alone in thinking about how to survive in the future: the UN’s longer-term planning and development teams have been working closely with emergency humanitarian workers from the very beginning of the crisis.
In part 2 of this special report, we will look more closely at the efforts underway to make the region more resilient, in the face of climate change and the likelihood of more frequent, and more extreme, natural disasters.
We’re live as the Security Council convenes for its annual open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, with briefings from UN relief chief Tom Fletcher and the head of UN Women Sima Bahous. Ambassadors will discuss evolving threats, including use of heavy weapons and the rise of lethal autonomous killing machines such as drones. The UN has documented a spike in deaths, with Gaza, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine among the hardest-hit. Mobile app users can follow here.
It is the first time since 2017 that a famine has been declared anywhere on Earth.
In the 20 months since the war between rival militaries erupted, 13 million Sudanese have been forcibly displaced and over 30.4 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, according to UN estimates.
The inhabitants of the Zamzam camp, like others in the Darfur region, have once again been displaced as extreme violence permeates every corner of the country.
In short, Sudan has quickly become one of the most severe food insecurity crises in history.
‘Scar’ of hunger
But in a year when the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity increased for the sixth consecutive year, Sudan is far from the only place marked by what the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called the “scar” of hunger.
According to the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises, which was released Friday, over 295.3 million people in the 53 countries and territories selected for the report faced acute food insecurity, a number which amounts to 22.6 per cent of the population analysed.
The report “is another unflinching indictment of a world dangerously off-course,” the UN chief said.
‘A failure of humanity’
The report identified 36 countries and territories which have had prolonged food crises, with 80 per cent of their inhabitants facing high levels of food insecurity every year since 2016.
Moreover, the number of people facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, as determined by the IPC standards, doubled between 2023 and 2024.
“After years of recurring emergencies in the same contexts, it’s clear that business-as-usual is not working,” the report concluded.
For the first time, the annual report also provided data on nutrition, estimating that 37.7 million children aged 6-59 months experienced acute malnutrition in 26 countries.
Numbers like this do not emerge randomly, nor do they emerge in a vacuum. Rather, the report notes that this level of worldwide food insecurity is the result of multiple, intertwined factors.
“No region is immune, with crises overlapping and interacting, eroding decades of development gains and leaving people unable to recover,” the report said.
More than a systems failure
Increased conflict was one of the driving causes for increasing food insecurity in 2024, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, the Sudan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Palestine – the Gaza Strip.
Gaza experienced the highest share of its population facing food insecurity, with 100 per cent of its inhabitants facing acute food shortages in 2024. Continued aid blockages since March 2025 have only worsened this insecurity.
The report also underlined the role that climate change plays in food shortages, pointing specifically to changing weather patterns which have impacted agriculture.
For example, the food situation in Sudan was worsened by low rainfall in 2024 while other parts of Southern Africa such as Namibia experienced crop failures due to flooding.
War, climate, economic shocks
Economic shocks, including inflation and projected trade wars, also played a large role in worsening food insecurity crises, especially in places like Syria where long-term systemic instabilities increased vulnerabilities to economic shocks.
The Secretary General emphasized, however, that food insecurity at this level cannot simply be explained by one cause.
“This is more than a failure of systems – it is a failure of humanity,” he said.
New strategies, fewer funds
Recent funding shortages are projected to further exacerbate abilities to track and deal with food insecurity with funding for food-based humanitarian initiatives expected to drop by 45 percent.
Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said that the funding shortages are impacting every aspect of food distribution, from decreasing the amount of food WFP can provide and the funding for transport to remote areas.
“As things stand, I do not know if we will be able to keep our planes in the sky,” Ms. McCain said.
Because recent funding cuts will negatively impact efforts to provide aid, the report underlined the importance of finding “cost-efficient” strategies which do more to invest in long-term community resilience and capacity development.
“[Addressing the root causes of food insecurity] requires better alignment of humanitarian and development investments, and a shift from treating food crises as seasonal shocks to confronting them as systemic failures,” the report said.
The UN Pact for the Future agreed in September 2024 dealt in part with the question of food insecurity in the 21st century, advocating for more resilient, inclusive and sustainable food systems.
Building on this, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is advocating for expanded investment in sustainable agriculture, which is four times more cost-effective than direct food assistance but only accounts for three percent of humanitarian funds.
“At FAO, we know that agriculture is one of the most powerful yet underused tools we have to curb food insecurity … Agriculture can be the answer,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO’s Office of Emergency and Resilience.
Hunger is ‘indefensible’
In his video message on the report, the Secretary-General said that the Second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake, which will be held in July in Addis Ababa, is an opportunity for the international community to work collaboratively towards addressing the challenges laid out in the GRFC report.
“Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible. We cannot respond to empty stomachs with empty hands and turned backs,” he said.
