It is yet possible to keep the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius and prevent the worst effects of climate change.
But only with bold, quick climate action. The need for leadership. Stop being hesitant. Please stop using justifications. Stop for other people to take the initiative. There simply isn’t time left for that.
At the summit on food systems held in Rome by the UN Food and Agriculture Agency, Guterres spoke to the attendees.
He added that the level of fossil fuel profits and inactivity on climate change is “inacceptable,” predicting “unbreathable” air and “unbearable” temperatures in the future.
According to scientists, people are to blame, which is unfair. The only surprise, according to Guterres, is the rate of change.
His statements made clear how close the earth is to disaster following weeks of record high temperatures, catastrophic weather, and flames engulfing significant areas of Europe.
He emphasised that in order to prevent “the worst,” which is still to come, collective action is required, “not despair.”
Secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has “strongly condemns the unconstitutional change in government” in Niger, according to a statement released by his spokesperson on Wednesday.
The coup was declared on national television by Nigerien soldiers, who claimed to have suspended all institutions, dissolved the constitution, and locked the country’s borders.
In a statement released by his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, Mr. Guterres said he was “deeply disturbed” by President Mohamed Bazoum’s incarceration and was “concerned for his safety and well-being.”
“The Secretary-General calls for an immediate end to all actions undermining democratic principles in Niger,” Mr Dujarric added.
A recent report by the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, indicates that nearly 300 children are believed to have perished or gone missing this year while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe.
The report highlights the challenges of accurately documenting the true number of casualties, as many shipwrecks either go unrecorded or leave no survivors. Consequently, the actual figure is likely higher than reported.
In response to this alarming situation, UNICEF is advocating for the establishment of more safe and legal pathways for young individuals to seek asylum, as well as improved rescue efforts at sea.
The report emphasizes the need for comprehensive actions to address the underlying causes that compel children to flee their home countries and put their lives at risk.
Addressing this humanitarian crisis requires a multifaceted approach, including providing greater protection for vulnerable children, facilitating access to legal avenues for seeking refuge, and addressing the root causes that drive migration.
President Akufo-Addo has stated that government is determined to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which focuses on providing access to water and sanitation for all.
He made this commitment during the inauguration of phase three of the five districts water project in Adaklu, Volta Region.
The project has successfully provided clean drinking water to a population of over 89,000 individuals residing in the Adaklu, Agotime-Ziope, and Central Tongu districts.
President Akufo-Addo emphasized the government’s dedication to ensuring that the lack of safe water in rural areas of Ghana becomes a thing of the past.
“Regarding SDG 6 with demands that we provide clean water and sanitation for all, the Akufo-Addo government has made significant improvement towards this objective.”
“You may recall at a ceremony in the Ho West District on the same day I cut the sod for the commencement of five districts’ water project, I commissioned completed projects under the water supply improvements project of the Ghana Spain Debt Swap Development Programme implemented by the Community of Water Sanitation Agency (CWSA) at a total cost of $3.7 million,” he stated.
The military took over Mali last year and brought in mercenaries from the Wagner group from Russia, forcing France to withdraw its troops.
How come the UN dispatched a peacekeeping mission to Mali?
After Islamist fighters and rebels from the south of Mali united and took control of the region in 2013, the UN sent a mission there. A distinct state was what they aimed to establish.
The UN peacekeepers arrived after 5,000 French troops, who were sent to try and put down the uprising.
The threat from Islamist militants, who have killed several thousand people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, has continued over the years.
While the UN force in Mali has a wider brief to protect civilians and contain the jihadist threat, it is not intended to go on the offensive against militants.
In Mali and across the wider region attacks have been carried out by Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and an al-Qaeda affiliate called Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin.
Another jihadist group, Ansaroul Islam, is active in Burkina Faso, and Boko Haram is active in countries around Lake Chad.
Has the UN mission been successful?
Despite the presence of UN peacekeepers and French troops, who led counter-terror operations, the number of terror attacks in Mali steadily increased, as did the number of Malians joining insurgent groups.
Over the past decade, more than 300 UN peacekeepers have been killed. It has been described as the deadliest peacekeeping mission in the world.
Russia and China has criticised the mission at the UN, and countries such as the UK and Sweden have refused to provide troops.
Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would withdraw French forces.
He was angry that military leaders – who seized power in 2021 – delayed plans to hold democratic elections. They also invited the Russian mercenary group Wagner to provide an estimated 1,000 fighters to provide security.
At the moment it is unclear whether the recent mutiny by Wagner fighters in Russia will have a bearing on its operations in Mali.
Why does Mali want the UN peacekeepers to leave?
The UN’s mandate in Mali is due to expire on 30 June.
The UN’s Secretary General, António Guterres, had recommended extending their stay in Mali for another year.
However, Mali’s Foreign Minister, Abdoulaye Diop, rejected this, saying the UN force had failed to respond effectively to security challenges.
UN commanders have complained that the Malian government has often interfered with their operations.
Mr Diop also accused the UN mission of “making serious allegations which are detrimental to peace, reconciliation and natural cohesion in Mali”.
In May, the UN released a report alleging that during an anti-jihadist operation in central Mali in March 2022, Malian army troops and foreign mercenaries killed 500 civilians.
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council voted to withdraw the peacekeepers over the next six months.
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on Friday regarding the conclusion of its peacekeeping mission in Mali and the conditions for withdrawal.
The government of Mali issued a sudden demand two weeks ago for the 13,000-strong force to leave the country immediately. The mission was initially deployed a decade ago to address the deteriorating security situation caused by an increasing Islamist insurgency.
In recent years, Mali has sought military assistance from Russia and its Wagner mercenaries, following longstanding tensions between the UN and Mali’s military government.
Mali’s leadership justified their decision to expel the peacekeepers by expressing a lack of confidence in the force’s ability to effectively counter the violence perpetrated by the Islamist insurgency.
The peacekeeping mission has played a crucial role in safeguarding civilians and providing transportation for government officials in conflict zones. Their departure will create a security and logistical gap, and it remains uncertain whether the presence of Wagner mercenaries alone will be sufficient to fill this void.
Mali made the decision to expel the UN peacekeepers before the Wagner group’s unsuccessful rebellion against the Kremlin, which has raised uncertainties regarding the future involvement of Wagner in Africa.
Over the past two months, the regional government of Tigray has reported that at least 728 people have lost their lives following the suspension of food aid by the US and the UN to the war-torn region in Ethiopia.
According to an official from Tigray’s Disaster Risk Management Commission, Gebrehiwot Gebregziaher, the majority of the victims were children, pregnant mothers, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions.
Although USAid and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) officially halted aid in April due to concerns over theft and resale of the shipments, in reality, many Tigrayans had been deprived of assistance long before the formal suspension. This prolonged period without aid has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the region.
The situation highlights the urgent need for sustained humanitarian support and a robust mechanism to ensure the effective delivery of aid to the vulnerable population in Tigray. Addressing the challenges of theft and ensuring that aid reaches those in dire need is crucial to prevent further loss of life and alleviate the suffering of the affected communities.
People feel they are “dying of famine in the dark even though it is declared to the world [that] peace is flourished,” said Dr Gebrehiwot, referring to a peace deal made in Pretoria in November last year between Ethiopia’s government and TPLF rebels after two years of civil war.
Russia has been added to the UN’s yearly list of nations that have been deemed to have violated children’s human rights.
It emphasised the murder and dismemberment of children committed by both Russian forces and mercenaries following on Moscow’s instructions, including the notorious Wagner Group.
The UN has confirmed 480 strikes on schools and hospitals and 136 child deaths by Russian forces in 2022 alone, along with 518 injuries.
Ukraine says 484 have died as a direct result of the invasion over the 16 months since it began.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: ‘I am particularly shocked by the high number of attacks against schools, hospitals and protected personnel, and by the large number of deaths and maimings of children attributed to Russian forces and affiliated armed groups.’
Mr Guterres said he is also concerned by the number of human rights violations against children by Ukrainian forces.
According his report to the Security Council, Ukrainian soldiers are responsible for the deaths of 80 children and injuries to 175 others, many occurring in an estimated 212 strikes on schools and hospitals.
Turning back to Russia, he reiterated ‘concerns’ about the Putin regime’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, which has been branded a war crime by the UN.
Upwards of 16,000 youngsters were estimated to have been taken as of March this year after their towns were conquered.
Of those, 10,513 have been located, according to Ukrainian officials, but only around 300 have been returned.
Victims freed from their captors described how soldiers told them their parents had abandoned them, and beat them with iron rods if they voiced support for Ukraine.
Speaking earlier this year, the mother of one liberated boy said her son was refusing to open up about the experience and told her: ‘Mum, I don’t want to tell you about it, you wouldn’t sleep at night.’
Other parents have claimed Russian civilians – sometimes their own relatives – are taking part in the kidnappings by allowing kids to be rehomed with them.
Russian social services are reportedly paying out cash and moving people into better-quality homes in exchange for fostering Ukrainian children.
The UN says Russia’s policy has created ‘a framework in which some of the children may end up remaining permanently’.
Globally, the UN verified grave violations against 13,469 children over 2022, including 2,985 who were killed, in 24 countries and one region.
Some of the worst upsurges were found in Myanmar and South Sudan, where violations rose 140% and 135% respectively.
The UN estimates that more than 1.3 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of the fighting in Sudan.
After more than six weeks of fighting, the Sudanese military and a potent paramilitary organisation are still engaged in combat.
Per the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of the UN, over a million people have been compelled to leave their homes and relocate within the nation to safer locations.
An additional 320,000 people have fled to Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya, which are nearby nations.
Clashes between rival forces even broke out today in Khartoum, despite a ceasefire being agreed on Monday – albeit a fragile one.
Sporadic fighting continued in several areas and residents reported hearing gunshots and explosions in central Khartoum, as well as areas close to military facilities in Omdurman.
Both sides blamed each other for violating the cease-fire.
Just five days ago, houses were left shaking after the capital was hit by airstrikes and the civil war has led to a collapse in law and order, with looting that, again, both sides have traded blame for.
Violence erupted on April 15 this year after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The situation has worsened an already existing humanitarian crisis and right now, stocks of food, cash, and essentials in the North African nation are rapidly dwindling.
Hopes of restoring the country’s fragile transition to democracy have been completely shattered by the conflict.
At least 863 civilians have already been killed, including at least 190 children, while more than 3,530 people have been wounded, according to the most recent data from the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, which mainly tracks civilian casualties.
It has pushed the country to near collapse, with urban areas in Khartoum and its neighbouring city of Omdurman turning into battlegrounds.
Egypt is hosting the largest number of those who have fled, with at least 132,360 people, followed by Chad with 80,000 and South Sudan with more than 69,000, the agency added.
All but one of Sudan’s 18 provinces has experienced displacement, with Khartoum at the top of the list with about 70% of the total number of displaced people, according to the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix.
The weeklong ceasefire was brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia and was the latest international effort to push for humanitarian aid delivery to the conflict-torn country.
A joint statement from the US and Saudi Arabia yesterday evening warned that neither the Sudanese military nor the Rapid Support Forces observed the short-term ceasefire.
The fighting has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian conditions in Sudan. According to the UN, the number of people who need assistance this year has increased by 57% to reach 24.7 million people – more than half the country’s population.
The international body said it would need £2.1billion ($2.6bn) to provide them with much-needed humanitarian assistance.
Shortly after the civil war broke out, British nationals were desperately trying to escape in terrifying circumstances.
One student who managed to flee Khartoum likened scenes in the city to that of the horror movie The Purge, while another Brit risked being shot to walk four hours to an airstrip for an evacuation flight.
The United Nations is currently in urgent need of approximately $3 billion (£2.4 billion) to support humanitarian operations in Sudan.
The organization anticipates that over a million individuals will be forced to flee the country due to the ongoing conflict between the national army and rival militia groups.
Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN’s humanitarian affairs coordinator, has stated that more than half of Sudan’s population, which amounts to 25 million people, require assistance and protection.
This staggering figure represents the highest number of individuals in need ever recorded in the country.
The conflict, which erupted a month ago, has led to the looting of supplies and attacks on aid workers. These obstacles further exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan.
TheNigerian government has said that its efforts to evacuate thousands of students and civilians stuck in the crisis-hit Sudan were hindered by “a few logistical delays.”
The fighting in the country entered its 12yh day on 27 April with over 500 people killed and at least 3,700 wounded, according toUN agencies.
Nigerian government critics accuse officials of undue delay in evacuating her nationals, especially students, out of the north-east African country.
To date, some 5,500 Nigerians are stranded in Sudan, Nigeria’s foreign ministry says.
“When there is [a] problem of this nature people are only agitated because they want to see the final result,” Ezekiel Manzo, an official of the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), tells The Africa Report of the government’s evacuation efforts.
“This thing, it has a process. One is the crisis itself. It broke out [and] there was no preparation or planning for the crisis. Secondly, this is a crisis that is internal, within the country, and the people that are the arrowheads of this crisis are the leaders of the country.”
Nigerian government has been having sleepless nights following the ongoing crisis in Sudan.
Our officials are doing a lot, coordinating with the Embassy in Khartoum, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments trying to ensure the safety of the large number of our citizens there. pic.twitter.com/nZTgQVxata
— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) April 23, 2023
Nations evacuate nationals
The latest crisis in Sudan erupted on 15 April following a disagreement between the country’s two most powerful military forces, the SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary RSF (Rapid Support Forces) led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti.
The crisis triggered a large-scale evacuation of foreign nationals from the country. As of 25 April, several EU and Middle East countries, including China, the UK, and the US launched emergency evacuation operations for their citizens.
On Tuesday, the first batch of stranded Indians left Port Sudan for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, aboard INS Sumedha. The Indian foreign ministry said 278 people were onboard.
The Netherlands carried out a fourth evacuation operation on Monday night, moving a total of around 100 Dutch nationals and 70 others, from 14 different nationalities, out of Sudan.
The US government says it evacuated its diplomats and their families on 23 April.
Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the West African country began evacuation plans at the same time as those who had already evacuated their nationals.
“The advantage that these people have is that the US, Italy, [or] France, don’t have 5,000 citizens in Sudan,” Onyeama told Channels Television on 23 April.
“There is also a risk that they took. The US helicopters… they have a naval base close by, they have those kinds of resources and evidently, they were ready to take certain risks to move those helicopters and other things in there and pull their people out.
“If we did the same, we would be being very selective. Because 100 people out of 5,500, who do you take?” Heading to Egypt
As of 25 April, Nigerian officials say buses have been hired to move nationals to Sudan’s border with Egypt. From there, they will bring them to the southern Egyptian cities of Aswan and Luxor where they would be airlifted to Nigeria.
A student told Nigeria’s Arise Television on Tuesday that they are “really pained” over the government’s slow pace of evacuation.
“Other countries are evacuating their nationals, they are eager, they are showing that care, they are valuing their lives. But for us, our own country is full of excuses, that there is no money, and it’s going to cost a lot. Is it that the money is more valued than the 4,000 lives of Nigerian citizens living in Sudan?”
💥
Nigerian students at the registration point in #Sudan waiting to the convey to Egypt Before Airlifting to Nigeria.🍁 pic.twitter.com/FIgpqc6YCe
— يامير™🍁 (@Sheikh_Ameer_O1) April 26, 2023
On Tuesday, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, head of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, shared on Twitter a receipt showing the payment of N150m ($330,000) for the hiring of buses for the evacuation of the students.
Onyeama later told journalists on Wednesday that the actual amount spent on hiring 40 buses for the evacuation is $1.2m.
“Of course you know, because of the risks involved and so many other things, a lot of people are going to also take advantage, you’re going to hike up the price. We saw that the French convoy was attacked and so forth. It was difficult procuring these buses. But we had to do it because you know, Nigerians’ lives matter to us.”
Sources, however, told The Africa Report that the Nigerian government would have to sort out the issue of security escorts for the buses before the evacuation.
“There must be [an] arrangement for security to accompany the buses to the border of Egypt. Then from Egypt, the military of Egypt will now take over from there and accompany them to Aswan,” says a source who preferred not to be named because he was not authorised to speak about it. “The buses are going to be moving in convoys and Aswan is like 45 hours or so from Khartoum, by road.”
Dabiri-Erewa did not respond to phone calls and messages requesting comments. But she posted a photo of the buses, taken at nightfall, and added that the Nigerian government had sorted out “a bit of some logistics delay.”
It’s late in the night . Will get a clearer view in the morning . But in that dark shot are buses that will convey Nigerian students to nearby borders in Egypt . More buses are arriving. A bit of some logistics delay but all now sorted by @nemanigeria and the Nig mission,Sudan pic.twitter.com/AYUGCPfF6u
— Abike Dabiri-Erewa (@abikedabiri) April 25, 2023
Airline’s offer
On Monday, Nigerian carrier, Air Peace Airlines, offered to airlift Nigerian citizens in Sudan free of charge if they are taken to a safe, neighbouring country.
“If they are moved to Kenya or Uganda or any other country, we will move in to get them out,” Allen Onyema, the airline’s CEO said in a statement. “Some parents have started calling on us to help. We are ready to do this again and again.”
Manzo says the government had already assembled Nigerians in a holding area in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, awaiting their conveyance to Aswan.
“It is from Aswan that Air Peace will go and lift because many people are saying that Air Peace is ready to carry Nigerians but that the authorities are not allowing it. Do we own Sudan? We don’t own Sudan?
“Air Peace cannot land in Sudan as we speak. They will have to go to a safe location and that is Aswan.”
On Wednesday, Onyema told Arise Television that the first batch of the stranded Nigerians would be flown out of Egypt on Friday.
As part of efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mustapha Ussif, the minister for youth and sports, has encouraged the UN to assist and invest in youth-owned small companies.
The Minister made the request on day three of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum in New York during his second keynote speech.
“The government and the UN can ensure the inclusion of young people in the majority of its initiatives such as Transforming Food Systems and Education, Digital Inclusion Programmes, and provide specific support to youth-focused programs on preventing violent extremism (PVE), among others,” the Minister proposed.
He also advocated for investments in small-scale firms owned by youth, with soft loans, grants, capacity training, and exchange programs.
These, he believes, will go a long way toward accelerating the achievement of the SDGs by 2030.
He also used the opportunity to reiterate policies and programmes by the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, which he said are contributing towards achieving the aforementioned goals, such as the National Youth Policy 2022-2032 and its Implementation Plan (2022 – 2027), National Youth Volunteer Programme (NYVP), the inauguration of National, regional and district Youth Parliament, the construction of the 10 regional Youth Resource Centres which comes with auxiliary facilities such as a FIFA standard football pitch, an ICT Centre, an entrepreneur centre and a conference room, which are all being implemented by the National Youth Authority.
The minister also urged the youth to choose peace and stability as the only way to create a meaningful collaboration that fosters personal and societal development.
Member of the Youth Advisory Group of the. United Nations Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Taahir Bulbulia thank Ghana for sending health personnel to support Barbados during the Covid-19 pandemic. He emphasized that the support really helped his country to save a lot of lives.
The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is an annual United Nations Youth Forum initiative organised as the main platform for youth to share their ideas at the global level.
A truce in Sudan went into effect at midnight local time (22:00 GMT on Monday), and it seems to be holding.
With prior cease-fires not being respected, this is the fourth attempt to put an end to the violence that started on April 15.
After 48 hours of discussions, the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) came to a 72-hour truce, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
On Tuesday, there were reports of gunshots in the capital, Khartoum.
There have also reportedly been reports of airplanes hovering overhead, but city dwellers have returned to the streets.
Independently, both parties to the conflict, which has claimed more than 400 lives, declared their participation in the truce.
The violence in Sudan, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres, runs the risk of igniting a “catastrophic conflagration” that might spread over the entire region and beyond.
Residents in Khartoum have been ordered to stay inside since the violence started, and food and water supplies are running low.
Some individuals have been compelled to drink water from the River Nile since the bombing damaged important infrastructure, such as water pipes.
As battle raged in the core, heavily populated areas of the capital, nations scurried to evacuate their embassies and citizens.
There will be hopes the ceasefire will allow civilians to leave the city. Foreign governments will also hope it will allow for continued evacuations out of the country.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said on Monday that an attaché had been killed while driving to the embassy in Khartoum to help with the evacuation of Egyptian citizens.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also confirmed on Monday that more than 1,000 EU citizens had been evacuated.
South Africa, Kenya and Uganda are among the African nations to have announced the evacuation of their citizens.
The UK government has announced it will begin evacuating British passport holders and immediate family members from Tuesday.
On Monday, Mr Blinken said that some convoys trying to move people out had encountered “robbery and looting”.
The US, he added, was looking at potentially resuming its diplomatic presence in Sudan but he described the conditions there as “very challenging”.
Sudan suffered an “internet blackout” on Sunday amid the fighting but connectivity has since been partially restored, according to monitoring group NetBlocks.
It is estimated that tens of thousands of people, including Sudanese citizens and those from neighbouring countries, have fled because of the unrest.
Hassan Ibrahim, 91, was among them. The retired physician lives near the main airport in Khartoum, where some of the worst fighting has taken place, but has since made the perilous journey into neighbouring Egypt with his family.
He told the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme they had escaped being caught up in a firefight between RSF fighters and the army but that a van travelling behind them had got hit. The family then boarded a bus to the border, which took 12 hours, only for them to be met by “crowded and chaotic” scenes as people waited to be given entry.
“There were so many families with elderly passengers, children and babies,” said Mr Ibrahim. “The Sudanese are fleeing the country – it is a sad reality.”
Eiman ab Garga, a British-Sudanese gynaecologist who works in the UK, was visiting the capital with her children when the fighting began and has just been evacuated to Djibouti on a flight organised by France. Her hurried departure meant that she was not able to say goodbye to her ailing father, her mother or her sister.
“The country is dirty, there’s rubbish all over it,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme. “There’s sewage overflowing, it smells, so now we’re next going to have an outbreak of illness and disease, and there won’t be a hospital to go to there.”
“We’re just looking at death and destruction and destitution.”
Violence broke out primarily in Khartoum, between rival military factions battling for control of Africa’s third largest country.
This came after days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.
Since a 2021 coup, Sudan has been run by a council of generals, led by the two military men at the centre of this dispute – Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country’s president, and his deputy and leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.
They have disagreed on the direction the country is going in and the proposed move towards civilian rule.
The main sticking points are plans to include the 100,000-strong RSF into the army, and who would then lead the new force.
Gen Dagalo has accused Gen Burhan’s government of being “radical Islamists” and that he and the RSF were “fighting for the people of Sudan to ensure the democratic progress for which they have so long yearned”.
Many find this message hard to believe, given the brutal track record of the RSF.
Gen Burhan has said he supports the idea of returning to civilian rule, but that he will only hand over power to an elected government.
Executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, has indicated that she is “appalled and heartbroken” by the murder of three workers in the Darfur region of Sudan.
In a statement, she says two other WFP employees were injured in the same incident.
“We have informed the families of these dedicated team members and stand with them and our entire WFP family at this time of catastrophe,” she says.
“Any loss of life in humanitarian service is unacceptable and I demand immediate steps to guarantee the safety of those who remain.”
Aid workers are neutral and should never be a target. Threats to our teams make it impossible to operate safely and effectively in the country and carry out WFP’s critical work.Cindy McCainWFP Executive Director
The United Nationswarned Friday that it would no longer be able to feed 600,000 refugees in Chad within weeks unless it receives urgent international funding.
The UN’s World Food Programme said Chad was hosting the biggest refugee population in west and central Africa, with the numbers rising due to unrest in neighbouring Sudan.
The WFP said that despite refugees being a priority, it had to reduce its plans to support 455,600 refugees down to only around 270,000 in April.
“We have already done a drastic targeting to ensure that the poorest among the poor will be assisted,” WFP’s Chad country director Pierre Honnorat told reporters in Geneva via video-link from the capital N’Djamena.
However, “we have absolutely no funding from May onwards for the refugees and displaced people. It’s really catastrophic.”
WFP wants $142.7 million for the next six months to feed all crisis-affected populations in Chad, including refugees, the 380,000 internally displaced, and other Chadians who have been hit by extreme weather in recent years.
“If no further funding is received, food assistance will come to a 100 percent halt in May 2023 for both refugees and internally displaced,” the agency said in a statement.
Chad is facing its fourth consecutive year of very high severe food insecurity.
The country suffered the worst lean season in a decade last year, plus the most devastating floods in 30 years. WFP said there were 1.9 million people in Chad who are food insecure.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency said it was looking to raise $172.5 million to provide protection and relief assistance to one million forcibly displaced people and their hosts in Chad.
“That is just 15 percent funded so we desperately need money for that country,” UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh told reporters.
He said the agency was encouraging Nigeria and Chad to look at voluntary returns of refugees.
“The numbers envisaged might be relatively modest but we think this is an important signal in terms of finding solutions for the displaced in Chad but also for the region.”
Revelations from recent findings in classified documents that were released online, the US believes that the UN Secretary General is overly accommodating to Russian interests. The records imply that Washington has been paying close attention to Antonio Guterres.
In several documents, Mr Guterres and his deputy are mentioned in private communications.
It is the most recent from a leak of top-secret papers, whose cause US officials are trying to determine.
The documents contain candid observations from Mr Guterres about the war in Ukraine and a number of African leaders.
One leaked document focuses on the Black Sea grain deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey in July following fears of a global food crisis.
It suggests that Mr Guterres was so keen to preserve the deal that he was willing to accommodate Russia’s interests.
“Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export,” the document says, “even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals.”
His actions in February, according to the assessment, were “undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine.”
Saying he wouldn’t comment on leaked documents, one senior official said the UN was “driven by the need to mitigate the impact of the war on the world’s poorest.”
“That means doing what we can to drive down the price of food,” he added, “and to ensure that fertiliser is accessible to those countries that need it the most.”
Russia has frequently complained that its own exports of grain and fertiliser are being adversely affected by international sanctions, and has threatened at least twice to suspend co-operation with the grain deal unless its concerns are addressed.
Russian grain and fertilizer are not subject to international sanctions, but Russia says it has experienced difficulties with securing shipping and insurance.
UN officials are clearly unhappy with America’s interpretation of Mr Guterres’ efforts. And they say that Mr Guterres has made his opposition to Russia’s war very clear.
Another document from mid-February describes a frank conversation between Mr Guterres and his deputy, Amina Mohammed.
In it, Mr Guterres expresses “dismay” at a call from the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, for Europe to produce more weapons and ammunition as a result of the war in Ukraine.
The two also talk about a recent summit of African leaders. Amina Mohammed says that Kenya’s president, William Ruto, is “ruthless” and that she “doesn’t trust him.”
It’s well known that America is among a number of nations which routinely spy on the UN – but when the products of that espionage come to light, it’s highly embarrassing and, for the world’s leading diplomat, potentially damaging.
There were few clues as to who leaked the files until Wednesday, when the Washington Post reported it was a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked on a military base.
It said he shared the classified information to a small group of men and boys who share a “love of guns, military gear and God” on Discord – a social media platform popular with gamers.
The BBC has been unable to verify the report, which was based on interviews with two members of the chat group.
The screenshots of the documents themselves, which have since been shared on several Discord discussion channels, have been verified by the BBC.
Discord said on Wednesday that it was co-operating with law enforcement in its investigation into the leak.
US national security spokesperson John Kirby told the BBC that the US government was scrambling to get to the bottom of the leaks.
“This was a series of dangerous leaks. We don’t know who’s responsible, we don’t know why. And we are assessing the national security implications, and right now there is also a criminal investigation,” he said on Wednesday.
“We want to get to the bottom of this, we want to find out who did this and why.”
Washington was “reaching out actively” to allies to answer questions they have about the leaks, so they know “how seriously we are taking this”, he added.
Mr Kirby said that while the authenticity of some of the documents had yet to be established, they “certainly appear to have come from various source of intelligence across the government”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned a disturbing video that appears to show a Russian soldier beheading a Ukrainian hostage.
In the film, a man wearing the yellow wristband normally worn by Ukrainian military appears to be wearing green fatigues.
Before another man appears to wield a knife to cut off his head, he can be heard screaming.
The footage, which appears to have been recorded by one of the presumed Russian soldiers, cannot be independently verified by Sky News as legitimate.
“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill,” the Ukrainian president said, his face sombre.
“There will be legal responsibility for everything. The defeat of terror is necessary,” he added in a video message.
The Kremlin described the video as “awful” but said its authenticity needed to be checked.
Moscow has denied in the past that its troops carry out atrocities during the conflict.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmitro Kuleba said on Twitter: “A horrific video of Russian troops decapitating a Ukrainian prisoner of war is circulating online.
“It’s absurd that Russia,which is worse than ISIS, is presiding over the UNSC,” he said, referring to the UN Security Council, where Russia took up the rotating presidency this month.
He added: “Russian terrorists must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN and be held accountable for their crimes.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called on the International Criminal Court to “immediately investigate yet another atrocity of the Russian military”.
The UN says it is “appalled” by the footage.
“Regrettably this is not an isolated incident,” the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a statement.
It said it recently found “a number of serious violations of international humanitarian law”, including against prisoners of war.
“These latest violations must also be properly investigated and the perpetrators must be held accountable,” it said.
Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said today that he will call on the UN Human Rights Committee to investigate the video apparently showing the Ukrainian prisoner of war’s execution.
Following the Taliban’s ban on female Afghan humanitarian workers, the United Nations instructed all of its employees in Afghanistan to avoid the organization’s offices in the nation and claimed that this forced it to make a “appalling choice.”
“UN national personnel, both genders, have been advised not to report to UN offices, with only restricted and calibrated exceptions provided for vital activities,” the agency said in a statement.
It happens after Afghan men who work for the UN in Kabul last week choose to stay at home in support of their female coworkers.
The UN said the Taliban’s move was an extension of a previous ban, enforced last December, that prohibited Afghan women from working for national and international non-governmental organizations.
The decree forced the UN “into having to make an appalling choice between staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people and standing by the norms and principles we are duty-bound to uphold,” the organization said in a statement Tuesday.
It added that the ban was “the latest in a series of discriminatory measures implemented by the Taliban de facto authorities with the goal of severely restricting women and girls’ participation in most areas of public and daily life in Afghanistan.”
The UN will continue to “assess the scope, parameters and consequences of the ban, and pause activities where impeded,” the statement said, adding that the “matter will be under constant review.”
Several female UN staff in the country had already experienced restrictions on their movements since the Taliban seized power in 2021, including harassment and detention.
“The lives of Afghanistan women are at stake,” he said, adding, “It is not possible to reach women without women.”
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, is engaging with the Taliban at the highest level to “seek an immediate reversal of the order,” the UN said last week.
“In the history of the United Nations, no other regime has ever tried to ban women from working for the Organization just because they are women. This decision represents an assault against women, the fundamental principles of the UN, and on international law,” Otunbayeva said.
Other figures within the organization also condemned the move, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calling it “utterly despicable.”
After the Taliban banned female aid workers in December, at least half a dozen major foreign aid groups temporarily suspended their operations in Afghanistan – diminishing the already scarce resources available to a country in dire need of them.
The Taliban’s return to power preceded a deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, worsening issues that had long plagued the country. After the takeover, the US and its allies froze about $7 billion of the country’s foreign reserves and cut off international funding – crippling an economy heavily dependent on overseas aid.
Afghanistan is at the biggest risk of famine in a quarter-century, according to the U.N. food agency, and it urgently needs $800 million over the next six months.
After the Taliban took power in August 2021 and the economy collapsed that followed, aid organizations have been supplying food, education, and health care assistance to Afghans. However, a Taliban decree that forbade women from working for domestic and foreign nonprofit organizations last December has had a significant negative impact on distribution.
Although the U.N. was not a party to this restriction, it claimed last week that Afghan women were no longer permitted to work for its agencies there because of the Taliban-led government. The restriction has not yet been addressed by the authorities.
The World Food Program stated that female staff members are actively involved in delivering the organization’s food and nutrition support and that it will “make every possible effort” to maintain this.
“The WFP urgently needs $800 million for the next six months to continue providing assistance to people in need across Afghanistan,” the organization said. “Catastrophic hunger knocks on Afghanistan’s doors and unless humanitarian support is sustained, hundreds of thousands more Afghans will need assistance to survive.”
The UN human rights office is “extremely worried about the impact” of plans by the United Kingdom government to send some migrants to Rwanda if they arrive in the country through unlawful routes.
The UK government’s proposals to send certain migrants to Rwanda if they enter the country illegally are still causing the UN human rights office “great worry about the impact,” the office claims.
Suella Braverman, the UK home secretary, has insisted that migrants can travel freely in Rwanda.
She stated on Sunday that she thought the Rwanda policy would have “a significant deterrent effect” so that people wouldn’t travel to the UK over the Channel.
Yet, according to evaluations conducted by the UN agency for refugees, the Rwandan asylum system was “not robust enough,” according to the UN human rights office.
“There are also concerns about respect for the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression in Rwanda. Those concerns do remain today,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
“We have a lot of evidence of how these plans [off-shore asylum facilities] go wrong,” she added.
According to the new edition of the UN World Water Development Report focuses on twin themes of partnerships and cooperation, two billion people do not have safe drinking water.
The report also adds that 3.6 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation. It was launched ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference.
Published by the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the report highlights collaborative ways actors can work together to overcome common challenges.
“There is an urgent need to establish strong international mechanisms to prevent the global water crisis from spiralling out of control,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay. “Water is our common future, and it is essential to act together to share it equitably and manage it sustainably.”
The global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to potentially double from 930 million in 2016 to between 1.7 and 2.4 billion people, in 2050.
The rising incidence of extreme and prolonged droughts is also stressing ecosystems, with dire consequences for both plant and animal species, the report said.
‘Global crisis’ looms
Richard Connor, the report’s editor-in-chief, told reporters at a press conference at UN Headquarters ahead of the launch that “uncertainties are increasing”.
“If we don’t address it, there definitely will be a global crisis,” he said, pointing to rising scarcity that reflects reduced availability and increased demand, from urban and industrial growth to agriculture, which alone consumes 70 per cent of the world’s supply.
Building partnerships and cooperation are key to realizing human rights to water and overcoming existing challenges, he said.
Explaining the landscape of such shortages, he said economic water scarcity is a big problem, where governments fail to provide safe access, such as in the middle of Africa, where water flows. Meanwhile, physical scarcity is worst in desert areas, including northern India and through the Middle East.
Answering reporters’ questions about possible “water wars” in the face of a global crisis, Mr. Connor said the essential natural resource “tends to lead to peace and cooperation rather than to conflict”.
Strengthening transboundary cooperation is the main tool to avoid conflict and escalating tensions, he said, noting that 153 countries share nearly 900 rivers, lakes and aquifer systems, and more than half having signed agreements.
Up and downstream
Detailing experiences – both good and bad – of partners’ efforts to collaborate, the report explains how accelerating progress on achieving related 2030 Agenda goals hinges on enhancing positive, meaningful cooperation among water, sanitation, and broader development communities.
Innovations during the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw partnerships form among health and wastewater authorities, who were together able to track the disease and provide critical real-time data, he said.
From city dwellers to small holder farmers, partnerships have produced mutually beneficial results. By investing in agricultural communities upstream, farmers can benefit in ways that help the downstream cities they feed, he said.
Running dry
States and stakeholders can cooperate in such areas as flood and pollution control, data sharing, and co-financing. From wastewater treatment systems to protecting wetlands, efforts contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions should “open the door to further collaboration and increase access to water funds”, he said.
“However, the water community is not tapping into those resources,” he said, expressing hope that the report and the conference can trigger productive discussions and on-the-ground results.
Johannes Cullmann, special scientific advisor to the president of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said “it’s a question of investing wisely”.
While water resources and how they are managed impact almost all aspects of sustainable development, including the 17 SDGs, he said current investments must be quadrupled to meet the annual estimated $600 billion to $1 trillion required to realize SDG 6, on water and sanitation.
“Cooperation is the heart of sustainable development, and water is an immensely powerful connector,” he said. “We should not negotiate water; we should deliberate on it.”
Water, after all, is a human right, he said.
Common good, not commodity
Indeed, water should be “managed as a common good, not a commodity”, a group of 18 UN independent experts and special rapporteurs said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
“Considering water as a commodity or a business opportunity will leave behind those that cannot access or afford the market prices,” they declared, adding that progress on SDG 6 can only happen effectively if communities and their human rights are at the centre of discussions.
“It is time to stop a technocratic approach to water and consider the ideas, knowledge and solutions of indigenous peoples and local communities who understand local aquatic ecosystems to ensure sustainability of the water agenda,” they said.
The commodification of water will “derail achievement of the SDGs and hamper efforts to solve the global water crisis”, the experts said.
For the first time in six years, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is visiting Iraq to show his support for the populace, the new administration, and its ambitious reform plan.
After touching down in Baghdad late on Tuesday, he told journalists “I am here in a visit of solidarity to underscore the commitment of the United Nations to support Iraq in the consolidation of its democratic institutions and advancing peace, sustainable development and human rights for all Iraqis.”
After “decades of oppression, war, terrorism, sectarianism and foreign interference” in Iraq’s affairs – just days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 2003 invasion – Mr. Guterres acknowledged that the challenges the country faces could not be brushed aside.
And amid reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani continues to face potential political obstacles in reviving national fortunes, the UN chief, in a joint press encounter with Mr. Al-Sudani, expressed his hope that Iraq “can break cycles of instability and fragility”.
He added: “I applaud the Prime Minister for his commitment to address the most pressing challenges facing the country head on – including combatting corruption, improving public services, and diversifying the economy to reduce unemployment and create opportunities, especially for young people.
“Such structural change requires systemic reform, stronger institutions, greater accountability and better governance at all levels – and the United Nations stands ready to support these important efforts.”
Referencing reported divisions over the sharing of Iraqi oil revenues between central government in the capital and provincial government in the north, Mr. Guterres encouraged all parties to build on “recent positive steps” between Baghdad and Erbil. “Sustainable agreements” and dialogue should be the long-term objective the UN Secretary-General said.
UNAMI/Sarmad Al-Safy UN Secretary-General António Guterres meets Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs on his arrival in Baghdad, Iraq.
Dignity of Iraq’s displaced
In earlier comments just after touching down, Mr. Guterres also spoke of his “enormous admiration” for the Iraqi people, highlighting how he had witnessed the courage of those displaced inside the country several times, on previous visits.
The UN Secretary-General also highlighted how Iraqi refugees in Jordan and in Syria had shown that they were able “to live in solidarity with each other, to help each other in the spirit that, in my opinion, is the best hope for the future of the country”.
Iraq’s efforts to repatriate its citizens from northeast Syria – including from the infamous Al Hol camp – had been “exemplary”, Mr. Guterres said, before noting Prime Minister Al-Sudani’s commitment to allowing the safe and dignified return of ethnic Yazidis to their homes in northern Iraq, after suffering genocide at the hands of Daesh in 2014.
Water emergency
Addressing another key challenge for Iraq, namely water scarcity, Mr. Guterres noted that the issue required international attention, before flagging the UN 2023 Water Conference from 22-24 March in New York.
The mighty Tigris and the Euphrates rivers were now running dry and the impact on agriculture has been dramatic, the UN chief said, adding that “it breaks my heart” to see farmers who have been forced to abandon lands where crops have been grown for thousands of years.
Iraq is one of the countries worst hit by climate change, which has driven displacement, threatened food security, destroyed livelihoods, fuelled conflict and undermined human rights, Mr. Guterres maintained.
When coupled with a volatile security situation and governance challenges, “it can put stability at risk… so now is the time for the international community to support Iraq in tackling its environmental challenges, diversifying its economy, and harnessing its potential for sustainable growth,” the Secretary-General insisted.
UNAMI
Secretary-General António Guterres meets with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) at UNAMI Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq.
Then and now
Later in the day, the UN chief held a press conference where he contrasted his visit six years ago amidst the existential threat posed by the war against terrorist group Da’esh, or ISIL, with Iraq now.
His visit then was “one of solidarity in a moment of urgency. Today it is a visit of solidarity and hope for the future of Iraq. With a new Government in place, there is a window of opportunity for progress”, he said.
The Secretary-General on Wednesday also heard from representatives from women’s groups and youth, who voiced their views on the need for further opening up of civic spaces and expressed concern over unemployment and climate change.
He noted with interest, the increasing awareness of climate change issues both from the Government side and among civil society. He encouraged activists and civil society groups to mobilize and lobby authorities for further action on adaptation and climate resilience.
UN teams
The Secretary-General also held a townhall meeting with UN personnel based in Iraq, including the assistance mission UNAMI, the Country Team and the UN Investigative Team bring Da’esh terrorists to account (UNITAD).
He also visited the National Museum of Iraq, where he voiced appreciation for the immense contribution made by Iraq to world history.
“The contribution of Iraq to world civilization, to world culture, is absolutely outstanding”, he said reflecting on the fact that the Abbasid Caliphate flourished, while Europe was still a “barbarian area”.
“So, I’m here to pay tribute to all those that are working in this museum, preserving it in the difficult times that Iraq has faced some years ago, which allow us to be able to contemplate the magnificent culture and history of this wonderful country.”
Heading north
On Thursday, the Secretary-General is due to visit a camp for displaced people in the northern part of Iraq.
He plans to meet residents and have a first-hand look at the work that UN agencies are doing there, serving those forced to leave their homes. In the afternoon he will head to Erbil and meet various officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government.
On Thursday, the UN General Assembly in New York overwhelmingly backed a resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over a year prior.
Fifteen African countries abstained and 28 supported the vote
South Africa, Ethiopia, Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Namibia, Central Africa Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Guinea, Mozambique, Sudan, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe abstained in the vote.
The resolution demanded an end to hostilities in Ukraine and the departure of all soldiers. Though not legally binding, the measure has political influence.
141 countries voted in favor, 32 abstained, and seven countries opposed. Africa represented over half of the abstentions.
Eritrea and Mali were the only African countries who voted against.
Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and Guinea-Bissau did not take part in the voting.
Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana and Kenya were among the African countries who backed the vote.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the resolution which he described as a powerful signal of global support.
Friday marks exactly a year since the full-scale invasion began.
The #UNGA 11th ESS (resumed) just adopted draft resolution A/ES-11/L.7 on Principles of the Charter of the #UN underlying a comprehensive, just & lasting peace in #Ukraine (by recorded vote: 141 in favour-7 against-32 abstentions) – FULL TEXT 🔗 https://t.co/cY7MpDcTt5@UN_PGApic.twitter.com/wCtq8719t5
Local media reported that a Syrian family of seven, which included five children, perished in a fire that broke out in the Turkish home they had relocated to following last week’s earthquake.
The single-story home, where 14 people resided, caught fire on Friday, according to a written statement from the Konya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, according to the state-owned Anadolu Agency in Turkey. According to the report, seven accident victims were being treated.
According to Anadolu, just a few days prior, the family had relocated from the southeast Turkish city of Nurdagi in Gaziantep province to the central region of Konya.
“The necessary investigations were carried out at the scene and a committee of experts was appointed,” the statement said.
“We saw the fire but we could not intervene. A girl was rescued from the window,” resident Muhsin Cakir told Anadolu.
The five children who died were aged between four and 13, Anadolu said. Turkey is home to nearly four million Syrians.
Many of them live in southeastern regions devastated by last week’s disaster. The death toll from the quakes has surpassed 43,000 across southeastern Turkey and Syria.
Gaziantep, one of southern Turkey’s big cities, has a population of almost two million, and nearly one-third of them are Syrian refugees who fled the war in the Arab country that started in 2011.
On Thursday, the United Nations appealed for more than $1bn in funds for the earthquake relief operation in Turkey, just two days after an appeal for $400m for quake-hit Syria.
Head of the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, there are now significantly more women and children moving to the Gulf States from the Horn of Africa.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) chief has expressed concern about the growing number of women and children travelling from the Horn of Africa to Gulf nations via Yemen (UN).
According to IOMDirector General Antonio Vitorino, the number of people making the perilous journey through Yemen from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti has increased by 64% in the last year as a result of people looking for better livelihoods and an increase in the number of women and children travelling alone.
In the past, women and children would often opt out of the dangerous journey through the desert mostly made on foot. Previously, men would leave their families behind and make the trek in the hope of finding jobs and sending money back home.
“The pressure is mounting” as the numbers of migrants rise, said Vitorino, who was in Kenya for the launch of an $84m appeal to support more than one million migrants using the route through Yemen.
The desperate migrants are vulnerable to criminal gangs along the route and need protection against rape, violence, traffickers and smugglers, he said.
Some of the migrants are unaware of the dangers – including the war in Yemen – and the UN’s migration organisation needs to improve awareness of the perils, he said. For migrants who still choose to take the journey, the organisation should offer basic healthcare and other services and in some cases return them to their countries of origin, he said.
“Last year, we have returned voluntarily to Ethiopia 2,700 migrants and upon arrival we provided post-arrival assistance to support them to move back to their regions of origin,” Vitorino said.
Also rising is the migration of people from West Africa through Libya to Europe, and the plight of those migrants, particularly those who are detained in conflict-stricken Libya, is a global concern, he said.
“We know where the official detention centres are and we have access to them, not permanently, never alone, but under surveillance of security guards. But we have access to provide assistance,” said Vitorino.
But the UN organisation does not have access to the unofficial detentions centres, which are particularly worrying, as there are reports of widespread abuses in them, he said.
The IOM is striving to get more migrants into voluntary return programmes in order to reduce those in detention, he said. It’s difficult because the number of migrants who want to return is much higher than available flights from Libya, he said.
Vitorino said he hopes the factors that lead to increased migration, like climate change and conflict, can be addressed to reduce the number of people moving away from their homes.
He stressed the need for migrants to pursue legal migration routes, adding that although the process is complicated and cumbersome, it cannot be compared to the life-threatening conditions along illegal routes.
In light of recent data showing that sea levels have risen quickly since 1900, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a warning about the threat that rising sea levels pose to hundreds of millions of people who live in low-lying coastal areas and small island states.
In a forceful speech to the first UN Security Council discussion on the effects of rising sea levels on international peace and security, Guterres stated that not only were large cities like Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Maputo, New York, and Shanghai threatened, but so were nations like Bangladesh, China, India, and the Netherlands.
“The danger is especially acute for nearly 900 million people who live in coastal zones at low elevations — that’s one out of 10 people on Earth,” he told the council on Tuesday.
Climate change is heating the planet and melting glaciers and ice sheets, which, according to NASA, has resulted in Antarctica shedding some 150 billion metric tonnes of ice each year on average, Guterres said. Greenland’s ice cap is shrinking even faster and losing 270 billion metric tonnes per year.
“The global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than at any time in the past 11,000 years,” the UN chief said.
“Our world is hurtling past the 1.5-degree warming limit that a liveable future requires and, with present policies, is careening towards 2.8 degrees – a death sentence for vulnerable countries,” he said.
Developing countries, in particular, must have the resources to adapt to a rapidly changing world and that means ensuring the $100bn climate finance commitment to developing countries is delivered, Guterres said.
The UN chief offered examples of the effects of a warming planet and rising sea levels on communities and countries stretching from the Pacific to the Himalayan river basins.
Ice melting in the Himalayas has already worsened flooding in Pakistan, he said. But as the Himalayan glaciers recede in the coming decades, the mighty Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers will shrink. Hundreds of millions of people living in the river basins of the Himalayas will suffer the effects of both rising sea levels and the intrusion of saltwater, Guterres said.
“We see similar threats in the Mekong Delta and beyond. The consequences of all of this are unthinkable. Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear forever,” he said.
“We would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale.”
With rising sea levels creating new arenas for conflict as competition for freshwater sources and land intensifies, the secretary general said the climate crisis needs to be addressed at its root cause: reducing emissions to limit warming. Understanding the link between insecurity and a changed climate also requires developing early-warning systems for natural disasters, and legal and human rights provisions are also needed, particularly to address the displacement of people and loss of territories.
“People’s human rights do not disappear because their homes do,” Guterres said.
The meeting of the Security Council heard speakers from some 75 countries all voicing concern about the effect of rising seas, the Associated Press reported.
Speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, Samoa’s UN ambassador, Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Pa’olelei Luteru, said alliance members were among the lowest to emit the greenhouse gases that had caused global warming and climate change.
“Yet, we face some of the most severe consequences of rising sea levels,” Lutero said, according to AP.
“To expect small island states to shoulder the burden of sea level rise, without assistance from the international community will be the pinnacle of inequities,” he said.
Ambassador Amatlain Kabua of the Marshall Islands said many of the tools needed to address climate change and rising seas were already known.
“What is needed most is the political will to start the job, supported by a UN special representative,” to spur global action, she said.
Settlements in the Palestinian territories are illegal under international law and have been condemned by the UN.
Israel’s far-right cabinet has approved the legalisation of nine illegal settler outposts in the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which called the move an “open war” against its people.
More housing units are likely to be built in separate, existing illegal settlements, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday.
“The nine communities had existed for many years; some have existed for decades,” the statement added. They were built without authorisation from the Israeli government.
More than half a million Israelis live in more than 200 settlements built on Palestinian land considered illegal under international laws. Palestinians say the settlement expansion threatens the viability of the future Palestinian state as part of the two-state solution.
The Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the latest decision crossed “all red lines” and undermined the revival of “the peace process”.
The United States, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has yet to comment, but last month its ambassador said the country opposes the authorisation of Israeli outposts. Biden administration has aired views against settlements.
The United Nations has condemned illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in multiple resolutions and votes.
‘Palestinians will continue to resist’
Political analyst Mohammad Oweis told Al Jazeera that the government of Netanyahu, who was elected in November to form a hardline right-wing coalition, was stepping up its claim on Palestinian land.
“This is an escalation, this will increase the level of violence against the property of the Palestinians,” Oweis said.
“The Palestinians will continue to resist with whatever they have in order to protect their lives and their property.”
The Israeli prime minister’s office said the decision was taken in retaliation for two recent attacks in Jerusalem that killed 10 Israelis. Three Israelis, including two children, were killed in an attack on Friday in Ramot, a Jewish settlement neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem.
“In response to the murderous terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, the security cabinet decided unanimously to authorise nine communities in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, using the Israeli name for the West Bank, which it occupied in 1967 along with East Jerusalem.
The announcement comes amid escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, with at least 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this year. Nine Israelis and one Ukrainian have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the past six weeks.
Netanyahu said earlier on Sunday during a meeting of his government he wanted to “strengthen settlements” and announced that his government wanted to submit legislation to Knesset, the Israeli parliament, this week to revoke the Israeli nationality of “terrorists”.
According to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), there have now been 20,665 fatalities.
It stated that more than 166,000 people were involved in the rescue and relief efforts and that nearly 93,000 victims had been evacuated from the earthquake zone in southern Turkey.
More than 3,500 deaths have been reported in Syria in the meantime.
At least 870,000 people urgently needed food in the two countries after the quake, which has made up to 5.3 million people homeless inSyria alone, the UN warned.
The UN has called for an investigation into violence in the self-declared republic of Somaliland where at least 50 people have been killed during two days of fighting between regional government troops and local militias.
Medics in the city of Las Anod say they are struggling to cope with the number of casualties.
The city is in an area (Sool) which is also claimed by the Somali region of Puntland.
The authorities there have denied that troops from Puntland are fighting alongside local militias.
The president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has called for all sides to hold talks to end the conflict.
Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991 but has not been internationally recognized.
Rebels operating in the eastern part of the country have recently captured large swathes of territory in the volatile province, sparking public anger against the UN and the East African Regional Force.
Recent fighting has killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands more.
A rescue operation is under way across much of southern Turkey and northern Syria following a huge earthquake that has killed more than 2,300 people.
The BBC’S Focus on Africa radio has spoken to several Ghanaian students who are living in nearby cities which were affected by the earthquake.
Ibrahim, a Ghanaian student living in Konya, together with his partner and one-week old baby, says that he is thankful to be alive after the earthquake struck.
“It was in the dawn when we heard the shaking of the land. We tried to gather the family and take them out of the house. I feel very sad and very sorry.”
Focus on Africa also spoke to Ghanaian student Nasser Abdallah, who is studying in Adana, 150 miles (241km) from Gazientep – the city closest to the epicentre.
“Early in the morning I was working on my laptop and all of a sudden I saw my laptop started to shake. It started from a mild shake to a very heavy shake.”
“We have been told that no one should enter their house until further notice.”
Following devastating earthquakes that claimed more than 4,600 lives and toppled buildings across southeast Turkey and northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has declared seven days of national mourning, and Syria has asked the UN for assistance.
Authorities worry that the death toll from Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which was followed by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake and several aftershocks, will rise as rescuers combed through piles of metal and concrete scattered across a region already troubled by Syria’s 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis in search of survivors.
Rescuers continued their search through the chilly night and into Tuesday morning in an effort to extricate more survivors from the debris.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), gave the number of dead in Turkey at 3,381 on Tuesday morning, while 15,834 others were injured.
In Syria, at least 1,300 people were killed, according to the Ministry of Health and the White Helmets rescue organisation on Monday evening.
Freezing winter weather conditions and snowfall in the devastated region have added to the plight of many thousands of people left injured and homeless by the earthquake. Downed buildings and destroyed roads have hampered efforts to find survivors and get crucial aid into affected areas.
Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said millions of people need help.
“And their need is even more acute because it is winter and they are facing cold temperatures, snow and rain.”
Ten cities in southern Turkey have been declared disaster areas, according to Al Jazeera’s Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from Istanbul. Freezing temperatures and snow have hampered rescue efforts, and more bad weather is expected to hit the region. Electricity supplies and natural gas have been cut off in many areas and the government is working to restore both services.
“A full picture of the devastation is only starting to emerge – devastation that will likely become more evident as the sun rises” on Tuesday, Ghoneim said.
Seismic activity continued to rattle the region on Monday, including another jolt nearly as powerful as the initial earthquake.
The US Geological Survey measured the initial earthquake at 7.8, with a depth of 18km (11 miles). Hours later, a 7.6 magnitude temblor also struck. The second jolt caused a multistorey apartment building in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa to topple onto the street in a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of the scene.
Dramatic video footage aired on Turkish television showed buildings collapsing in real time. Visuals showed rescue workers pulling a child alive from a flattened building. The child was then reunited with distraught parents in snow-covered streets.
More than 7,800 people have been rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s disaster management authority. Strained medical facilities have quickly filled with injured people, rescue workers said.
The Syrian American Medical Society, which runs hospitals in northern Syria and southern Turkey, said in a statement that its facilities were “overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways” and called urgently for “trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response to save lives and treat the injured”.
Governments and aid agencies have rushed to deploy personnel, funds and equipment to Turkey and Syria.
Jordan is sending emergency aid to Syria and Turkey on the orders of King Abdullah II, while Egypt has pledged urgent humanitarian help to Turkey. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is also sending Red Cross and Civil Defence first responders and firefighters to Turkey to help with its rescue efforts.
The European Union has mobilised search and rescue teams, and the bloc’s Copernicus satellite system has been activated to provide emergency mapping services. At least 13 member countries have offered assistance. The United Kingdom and United States said they are also ready to send help to Syria, but Washington has ruled out dealing directly with the Syrian government.
Germany’s foreign ministry said it is coordinating its aid response with EU partners and readying deliveries of emergency generators, tents, blankets and water treatment equipment.
The US is coordinating immediate assistance to NATO-member Turkey, including teams to support search and rescue efforts. In California, nearly 100 Los Angeles County firefighters and structural engineers, along with six specially trained dogs, were being sent to Turkey to help with rescue efforts.
Russian rescue teams from the Emergencies Ministry are preparing to fly to Syria, where the Russian military deployed in that country already has sent 10 units comprising 300 people to help clear debris and search for survivors. The Russian military has set up points to distribute humanitarian assistance. Russia also has offered help to Turkey, which has been accepted.
At Min Aung Hlaing’s request, Myanmar’s already two-year-old state of emergency was extended by another six months on Wednesday, according to state media.
It happened at the same time as the US and its allies announced new sanctions against the military regime.
On the second anniversary of the coup that overthrew the nation’s civilian government and resulted in Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest, the National Defense and Security Council approved the extension.
The “state of emergency will be extended for another six months starting from February 1,” acting President Myint Swe was quoted as saying. “Sovereign power of the state has been transferred to commander in chief again,” he added.
State media also reported Min Aung Hlaing as saying on Wednesday that “Our government will work to hold elections in every part of the country so as the people will not lose their democratic right.”
The UN has warned that the promised elections will likely not be free and fair.
Junta slammed with new round of sanctions
Washington, along with Canada and the United Kingdom and Australia on Tuesday imposed sanctions on the Union Election Commission, mining enterprises, energy officials and others, as per a statement by the US Treasury Department.
The statement said this was the first time the US had targeted Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) officials, the managing director and deputy managing director. It is the country’s single largest revenue-generating state-owned enterprise.
Mining Enterprise No 1 and Mining Enterprise No 2, both state-owned companies, as well as the Union Election Commission, were also hit with sanctions by Washington.
Canada targeted six individuals and prohibited the export, sale, supply or shipment of aviation fuel. Australia targeted members of the junta and a military-run company.
The UK designated two companies and two people for helping supply Myanmar’s air force with aviation fuel used to carry out bombing campaigns.
The sanctions come as Myanmar’s military has conducted aerial bombings and other attacks against pro-democracy forces.
UN warns planned elections likely a ‘sham’
On the same day, the independent UN special investigator on Myanmar warned that the military junta plans to seek legitimacy by orchestrating a “sham” election this year.
“You cannot have a free and fair election when the opposition is arrested, detained, tortured, and executed, journalists are prohibited from doing their job, and it is a crime to criticize the military,” Tom Andrews said at the UN.
Myanmar’s junta last month outlined plans to hold an election later in the year.
To do that, it is supposed to lift the nationwide state of emergency six months beforehand. Observers had widely expected the military to announce it was preparing for the polls this week, with the state of emergency set to expire on Wednesday’s anniversary.
But on Tuesday, the junta-stacked National Security and Defense Council said the state of the country “has not returned to normalcy yet.”
The statement accused opposition political groups of trying to seize “state power by means of unrest and violence.”
Membership rules set high bar to qualify
The junta had recently introduced new rules for parties contesting elections, which include a huge increase in their membership, a move that could sideline the military’s opponents.
The rules favor the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which was defeated by now-jailed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the 2015 and 2020 elections. The party includes several former military generals.
The NLD and western nations have denounced the election and said they would not acknowledge the results.
John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters that the US has still not matched stronger sanctions imposed by the European Union.
“As a result, the measures taken so far have not imposed enough economic pain on the junta to compel it to change its conduct,” he said.
Myanmar’s top generals led a coup in February 2021. The country has since seen instability, with a crackdown on dissent.
According to the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group that tracks killings and arrests in Myanmar, 2,940 civilians have been killed and 17,572 have been arrested by authorities since the army takeover.
NGO reports junta targeted religious sites
The London-based Myanmar Witness released a report on Wednesday saying troops of Myanmar’s military junta occupied a Catholic Church in Moe Bye and fired shells at civilians seeking refuge at the Mwe Daw Pagoda.
“Single events such as this help us to understand the bigger picture of daily life in Myanmar,” Dan Anlezark, Deputy Head of Investigations at Myanmar Witness, told DW.
Myanmar Witness reviewed videos and images captured during a flare-up of fighting in September last year, showing the Mary Mother of God Catholic Church seem to “have been the epicenter of the fighting.”
The destruction in the town reached a climax on September 16, when the Mwedaw Pagoda, which was providing shelter to people fleeing the fighting, was hit by artillery.
Footage collected by Myanmar Witness showed the impact sights and large blood puddles, footwear, and clothing in the pagoda courtyard.
“Two years after the military coup that overthrew democracy in villages and towns around the country, Myanmar Witness is regularly observing and investigating evidence of incidents and abuses of the type documented in this report,” he added.
On Tuesday, UN experts demanded an impartial investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Mali by government forces and the Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor.
Mali, whose government seized control in a military takeover in 2021, has previously claimed that Russian forces stationed there are not mercenaries but rather trainers assisting local troops with equipment purchased from Moscow.
According to Western powers, Wagner Group contractors are among the Russian forces in Mali.
“Since 2021, the experts have received persistent and alarming accounts of horrific executions, mass graves, acts of torture, rape and sexual violence, pillaging, arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances perpetrated by Malian armed forces and their allies,” said the statement from the independent experts.
Mali’s army spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year that the Russian state had nothing to do with military contractors working in Mali, adding that the African country had the right to work with private Russian firms.
Mali is engaged in a fight against armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) who have waged a decade-long conflict that has spread to neighbouring countries.
Tuesday’s statement mentioned the Wagner Group by name, and described credible reports of the involvement of military personnel believed to belong to the group in a massacre of hundreds of people in March.
Survivors have said that white mercenaries suspected to be Russians took part in the massacre in Moura, a market town in central Mali. The incident sparked international uproar and prompted the UN to open an earlier investigation.
Mali’s army has denied any wrongdoing in Moura and said it killed 203 militants there during what it described as a military operation.
The Wagner Group has attracted international attention over its prominent role in fighting during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, the United States designated Wagner as a “transnational criminal organisation” responsible for widespread human rights abuses.
Kuala Lumpur has declared that it is “appalled” by the recent recurrence of Islamophobic acts in the two European nations.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Swedish and Dutch embassies in Kuala Lumpur to protest the recent destruction of the Quran in both nations. Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned “in the strongest terms” the desecration of the Quran by a far-right activist in the Netherlands.
The ministry’s statement on Friday was directed at Dutch far-right leader Edwin Wagensveld, who on Sunday tore pages from a Quran and trampled them in front of the parliament in The Hague.
On Thursday, the foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s envoy to express theMalaysian government’s “objection and disappointment” with Sweden for not taking action to stop Rasmus Paluda, a Danish far-right political leader, from burning a Quran on Saturday near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
“Malaysia is appalled that such an Islamophobic act has been repeated within the last few days despite global condemnation,” the ministry said.
“Malaysia reiterates that bigotry, racism and any form of desecration of the Holy Scriptures, regardless of religion is unacceptable and should be condemned,” it said.
The right to freedom of expression involves “certain responsibilities and should not be abused”, the ministry said, calling on the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the UN’s Human Rights Council to “urgently address” the issue of protection of religious scriptures around the world.
The foreign ministry pressed Sweden on Thursday to take “serious measures to combat all forms of violence and hatred against Islam”.
Failing to do so would allow Islamophobia and xenophobia to continue to prevail, the ministry said in a statement after its meeting with the Swedish charge d’affaires.
Local media in Malaysia reported that groups of protesters had gathered on Friday at offices housing the embassies of Sweden and the Netherlands to protest the desecration of the Quran. Estimates of the numbers of protesters ranged from dozens to 100 and possibly as many as 1,000, according to one report.
Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said anger generated by the burning of the Quran had not diminished and the protesters had marched to the Swedish embassy to hand in a protest note.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had also weighed in on the matter, according to Looi, describing the desecration of the Quran as a “vile act” a “hate crime” and a “grave provocation to Muslims worldwide”.
Azmi Abdul Hamid, president of the Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisation, said there would be international consequences for what had taken place.
“You cannot say that this is a small matter. This will have an international repercussion,” he said at the protests.
Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said anger generated by the burning of the Quran had not diminished and the protesters had marched to the Swedish embassy to hand in a protest note.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had also weighed in on the matter, according to Looi, describing the desecration of the Quran as a “vile act” a “hate crime” and a “grave provocation to Muslims worldwide”.
Amina Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general, has been in Kabul for four days in an effort to persuade the Taliban to change their minds.
The nation’s Islamist leaders outlawed all women from working for non-governmental organisations last month (NGOs).
Several aid organisations had to halt operations as a result of the action.
At the conclusion of her trip, Ms. Mohammed told the BBC that the majority of senior Taliban figures she encountered were eager to discuss women’s and girls’ rights.
However, she described the talks as tough and cautioned that it would be a very long journey before the leadership took the fundamental steps required for international recognition of their rule.
“I think there are many voices we heard, which are progressive in the way that we would like to go,” Ms Mohammed said. “But there are others that really are not.”
“I think the pressure we put in the support we give to those that are thinking more progressively is a good thing. So this visit, I think, gives them more voice and pressure to help the argument internally.”
Ms Mohammed also criticised the international community, including other Islamic states, for not doing enough to engage on the issue.
Since seizing back control of the country last year, the Taliban has steadily restricted women’s rights – despite promising its rule would be softer than the regime seen in the 1990s.
As well as the ban on female university students – now being enforced by armed guards – secondary schools for girls remain closed in most provinces.
Women have also been prevented from entering parks and gyms, among other public places.
It justified the move to ban Afghan women from working for NGOs by claiming female staff had broken dress codes by not wearing hijabs.
Ms Mohammed’s comments come as Afghanistan suffers its harshest winter in many years.
The Taliban leadership blames sanctions and the refusal of the international community to recognise their rule for the country’s deepening crisis.
Ms Mohammed said her message to Afghanistan’s rulers was that they must first demonstrate their commitment to internationally recognised norms and that humanitarian aid cannot be provided if Afghan women are not allowed to help.
“They’re discriminating against women there. for want of a better word, they become invisible, they’re waiting them out, and that can’t happen,” she said.
“They believe that… the law applies to anyone anywhere and their sovereign rights should be respected,” she said.
The Taliban health ministry has clarified that women can work in the health sector, where female doctors and nurses are essential, but Ms Mohammed said this was not enough.
“There are many other services that we didn’t get to do with access to food and other livelihood items that that will allow us to see millions of women and their families survive a harsh winter, be part of growth and prosperity, peace,” she said.
This visit by the most senior woman at the UN also sends a message that women can and should play roles at all levels of society.
A hearing to decide whether 140,000 women and children from Zambia can file a class action lawsuit against the mining corporation Anglo-American is currently underway in the High Court of South Africa.
Residents of the town of Kabwe, the alleged victims, assert that after nearly 50 years of metal mining and smelting operations by the company, they have experienced extremely high levels of lead pollution.
They contend that children living in one of the world’s most polluted areas have suffered serious brain damage.
A study in 2020 found average levels of lead in the blood to be nine times above internationally accepted thresholds.
Anglo-American contests the claim, which it calls opportunistic. It says it’s not responsible for lead poisoning.
Fighting has not worsened despite a six-month UN-mediated truce coming to an end in October, raising the possibility that it might be extended again.
According to the UN special envoy for Yemen, as regional and international diplomatic efforts to end the eight-year conflict in the country increase, the chances of a new cease-fire in Yemen have increased.
More than three months after the initial cease-fire agreement expired, Hans Grundberg stated at a UN Security Council briefing on Monday that there had been “a potential step change” in the conflict’s trajectory, despite the fact that the situation remained “complex and fluid”.
In order to bring peace to the most impoverished country in the Arab world, Grundberg, a Swedish diplomat who has held his position since 2021, urged the warring parties to work toward “a shared vision” with practical steps.
A UN-backed truce initially took effect in April 2022 and raised hopes for a longer pause in fighting, but it ended on October 2 after just six months, after the Houthi rebels, who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen, refused to agree to a further extension.
Along with a stop to the fighting, last year’s truce deal allowed some fuel shipments into Houthi-held Hodeidah port and commercial flights from Sanaa, but it did not lift a partial Houthi blockade on the central city of Taiz, a primary goal for the government.
Despite the absence of a truce extension, fighting has not escalated.
“The overall military situation in Yemen has remained stable,” Grundberg told the UNSC. “There has been no major escalation nor changes in the disposition on the front lines.”
“However we continue to see some military activity in particular along the front lines … these military activities have regrettably, also resulted in civilian casualties.”
The UN is now pushing for an extended and broader deal encompassing a mechanism to pay public sector wages.
The Iran-allied Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government disagree on who should be paid however, with the government saying that payments should only be made to those in Houthi-controlled areas serving as civil servants before the Houthi takeover. The Houthis want the payments to be made according to the payrolls they have updated.
The Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen in 2014, eventually forcing the government into exile.
The war has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people over the past eight years [File: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]
A Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, militarily intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government to power, launching an air strike campaign.
More than 150,000 people have been killed, including 14,500 civilians.
No ‘piecemeal approach’
Grundberg, speaking from Sanaa where he is meeting the Houthi leadership, thanked Saudi Arabia and Oman for their diplomacy and said discussions in the past month have developed “options for mutually acceptable solutions to outstanding issues”.
However, he advised against a “piecemeal approach” focused on individual needs, saying talks on short-term steps should be part of a broader approach towards a sustainable resolution of a multifaceted conflict in which several parties are vying for power.
The UN envoy said “escalatory political and economic measures” could reignite violence.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who was Grundberg’s predecessor as envoy to Yemen, was also present at the meeting, and echoed his successor, saying the new year “brings a genuine opportunity to move the political process forward”.
But Griffiths said he feared 2023 would be “another extremely difficult year” with an estimated 21.6 million Yemenis needing humanitarian assistance “as the country’s economy continues to weaken and basic services hang by an ever-thinning thread”.
Griffiths called on the international community to support the UN’s humanitarian appeal and to redouble efforts to boost Yemen’s economy.
The head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, said in remarks on Houthi-run media on Monday that talks with an Omani negotiating team were positive and, departing from past rhetoric, stressed the movement’s desire for regional stability.
Canada says, the sanctions were for human rights violations committed during armed conflict from 1983 to 2009.
Canada has imposed sanctions on four top Sri Lankan officials, including former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, over “gross and systematic violations of human rights” during armed conflict in the island nation from 1983 to 2009, the Canadian foreign ministry has said.
The Sri Lankan government has taken “limited meaningful and concrete action” to uphold its human rights obligations, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday in a press release.
“The impact this will have on the [Rajapaksa] brothers in particular cannot be understated,” Mario Arulthas, a Phd candidate at SOAS, University of London and an adviser to People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, told Al Jazeera.
“Sri Lanka has been under pressure from countries such as Canada, the US and the UK for years, and has failed to deliver on repeated commitments it has made. This is a further signal, after similar sanctions by the US, that Sri Lanka will continue to be haunted by the crimes it committed against the Tamil people,” he said.
“Sanctioning individuals won’t be enough, however – ultimately there needs to be an international judicial mechanism that puts the perpetrators on trial.”
Alan Keenan, Senior Consultant, International Crisis Group, said that the sanctions “will not lead to quick or major changes within Sri Lanka”.
“But they are a timely reminder that continued impunity will bring increasing costs to the government’s international reputation at a time when it is desperately appealing for international financial assistance to address the economic crisis.”
Last October, the UN Human Rights Council renewed a mandate to collect and preserve evidence of atrocities during the decades-long civil war despite protests from Sri Lanka.
Sagara Kariyawasam, general secretary and member of parliament of the Rajapaksa-dominated Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), said that all Sri Lankans must condemn the Canadian move.
“Sri Lanka faced the scourge of terrorism for 30 years. Not only a large number of civilians were killed from all communities but also Tamil politicians, intellectuals and civil servants. Even renowned Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was killed by the LTTE,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa played a great role in ending the war. Now people live without fear of bombs going off, no more body bags go to villages each day.”
Sri Lanka’s separatist war killed more than 100,000 people, according to United Nations estimates [File: Sri Lankan Government/Reuters Handout]
‘Culture of impunity’
Gary Anandasangaree, a Canadian liberal party MP, told Al Jazeera that there is a culture of impunity that has prevailed in Sri Lanka.
If the country is to move forward, it needs to be a state “based on the rule of law”, he said.
“I hope Sri Lanka takes the direction of strengthening the rule of law and begins to hold people to account,” Anandasangaree said.
“We are confident these sanctions will have a ripple effect with other countries undertaking similar measures based on their domestic laws,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Canadian foreign ministry in its statement said it supports efforts towards “urgent political and economic reforms to alleviate the hardships faced by the people in Sri Lanka”.
In response to the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, Canada announced $3m to support the appeals launched by the UN and its partners to address “immediate needs, including food security and livelihoods, shelter and non-food items, as well as nutritional assistance and primary healthcare services for vulnerable children and women”, the statement said.
The number of people in Sri Lanka needing urgent humanitarian help doubled to 3.4 million, the UN recently said. It warned of a worsening food crisis in the south Asian island nation that declared itself bankrupt in July.
The island nation is facing its worst economic crisis since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1948 and has been enduring soaring inflation, power blackouts, and fuel rationing since last year.
Months of protests against high prices and shortages of food and medicines led to the toppling of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa last July. Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as prime minister last May. The Rajapaksa brothers were blamed for the economic crisis due to the mishandling of government policy.
Since then, thousands with the support of civil rights groups and trade unions have rallied to express their anger over the economic situation and police brutality.
The US has accused Kremlin-backed Russian military contractors of meddling in African countries’ internal affairs and “increasing the likelihood that violent extremism will grow” in the Sahel region, which has seen an upsurge in attacks, an allegation Russia has denied.
At a UN Security Council meeting on West Africa and the Sahel on Tuesday, US Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills lashed out at the Wagner Group.
He accused the paramilitary force of failing to address the threat posed by armed groups, robbing countries of resources, violating human rights, and endangering the safety and security of UN peacekeepers and personnel.
France’s political counsellor, Isis Jaraud-Darnault, echoed Mills, saying the “model” used by Wagner mercenaries has proven “totally ineffective in combating terrorism”.
She cited the “nefarious” and devastating impact of their work and human rights violations, including the alleged killing of more than 30 civilians in Mali, and its pillaging of natural resources.
Britain’s Deputy Ambassador James Kariuki cited the deterioration of security in Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, and the fear of instability spreading to West African coastal countries. “You cannot ignore the destabilising role the Wagner Group plays in the region. They are part of the problem, not the solution,” he told the council.
Russia’s Deputy Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva rejected what she called attempts “to besmirch Russian assistance to Mali”, where Moscow has a bilateral agreement to assist the transitional government, “and in other countries in Africa”.
“Some countries once again today declared that Russia apparently is pillaging and looting the resources of Africa and is facilitating the growth of the terrorist threat,” she said, accusing those unnamed nations of doing the same thing “throughout the world and in Africa”, especially in neighbouring Libya, which destabilised the entire area.
“Accusations against Russia are just astonishing, given common sense,” and undermine African leaders trying to resolve their own problems and decide who they want to cooperate with, she said.
Evstigneeva never mentioned the Wagner Group by name. The group is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally ofRussian President Vladimir Putin, and its mercenaries are accused by Western countries and UN experts of numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.
Giovanie Biha, the deputy head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel, told the council that “insecurity has again deteriorated in large parts of the region”, due to activities of armed groups, “violent extremists” and criminal networks.
As a result, she said, more than 10,000 schools across the Sahel have closed, leaving millions of children without an education. Nearly 7,000 health centres have also shut down.
Armed groups are fighting for supremacy and control of resources, she said, and the central Sahel is facing “unprecedented levels of security and humanitarian challenges; socio-political instability, further compounded by the impact of climate change; and food insecurity which was exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine”.
She added that increasing attacks in countries along the Gulf of Guinea are threatening transport arteries to landlocked countries further north.
According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ latest report issued this week, more than 18.6 million people in the region are experiencing “severe food insecurity” – an increase of 5.6 million since the end of June 2022 – with Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria being the hardest-hit. About 6.3 million people are displaced across the Sahel, an increase of 300,000 since June.
Russia’s Evstigneeva said Moscow shares concerns about the increasing number of threats in the region, ongoing inter-ethnic and inter-communal conflict, organised crime, drug trafficking and the killing of a large number of civilians by fighters in the second half of 2022.
She pointed to the withdrawal of French counterterrorism forces and the Takuba European military task force under their command on June 30, saying it wasn’t agreed on with Mali’s transitional government and is having “a negative impact” on the security situation in the short-term.
“Nonetheless,” she said, “there is already some progress” and Russia is providing Mali with “appropriate assistance”.
Mills, the US deputy ambassador, said the US is deeply concerned about the security, humanitarian and political crisis in the Sahel causing “a dramatic increase in the strength and influence of violent extremism”.
The problem requires “a democratic governance solution”, he said. “We are also gravely concerned about democratic backsliding across the region and urge the return of democratically elected, civilian-led governments.”
West Africa’s latest wave of coups kicked off in Mali in 2020, followed by another in Guinea in 2021, and then in Burkina Faso in January 2022.
Omar Alieu Touray, president of the West African regional groupECOWAS’ commission, told the council he was pleased to report that transitions to critical elections in the three countries are “on course”, with voting to take place in the next two years.
After several tense exchanges with the military junta that have strained relations between the two nations, Burkina Faso has requested that France recall its ambassador, Luc Hallade, according to the Paris-based pan-African publication Jeune Afrique, which cited unnamed sources in Paris.
Olivia Rouamba, the foreign minister of Burkina Faso, is said to have written to theFrench presidency “at the end of December” requesting a change of representative.
The change occurs less than two weeks after Barbara Manzi, the UN resident coordinator, was expelled by Burkina Faso.
In November, the French embassy in Ouagadougou accused Burkina Faso of failing to provide adequate protection to its premises, which were attacked during anti-French protests last year.
In July, Ambassador Hallade was forced to apologise for comparing militant violence in Burkina Faso to a civil war.
Burkina Faso is increasingly embracing Russia, seemingly under the influence of Mali which cut diplomatic ties with France last year after Paris condemned Bamako’s use of Russian mercenaries.
The UN is requesting that nations in South East Asia’s Andaman Sea region help a boat carrying at least 150 Rohingya refugees that has been idling without power for the past two weeks.
Many passengers, including children, have already passed away, according to those on board the boat who have been reached via satellite phone.
They claimed that there was a shortage of food and water.
On Friday, the UN issued its appeal, but there has been no response as of yet.
The small fishing boat left southern Bangladesh last month and has now been at sea for more than three weeks. Those on board are believed to have been trying to reach Malaysia.
The boat is open, with little shelter, and its engine appears tohave failed a few days after it departed.
It has now drifted hundreds of kilometres off course into Indian waters, near the Nicobar Islands.
An activist helping Rohingya in Bangladesh made contact with someone on the boat on Sunday.
“We are dying here,” the refugee said, adding that those on board had not eaten anything for more than a week.
The Rohingya are an ethnic minority in Myanmar many of whose members fled to Bangladesh in 2017 to escape a campaign of genocide launched by the Burmese military.
Many Rohingya try to escape from overcrowded refugee camps in southern Bangladesh by taking high-risk sea journeys at this time of year, after the monsoon in the region has passed.
Their numbers have grown because of deteriorating conditions in the camps, while more Rohingya who are still in Myanmar are also trying to leave following the military coup there last year.
At least five boats are known to have left in the past two months.
One of them with more than 100 Rohingya on board was rescued by Sri Lanka’s navy off the island’s northern coast on Sunday evening, Sri Lanka’s navy said.
The group included women and children. Four people were taken to hospital for minor sickness, a navy spokesman said.
An explosion and gunfire attack in northern Iraq claimed the lives of at least nine police officers.
On Sunday, the attack occurred close to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which is located about 290 kilometres (180 miles) from Baghdad.
The Islamic State organisation has taken ownership.
Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on Wednesday near Baghdad, and IS has already claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to officials speaking to AFP, the attack on Sunday started when a bomb targeted a truck carrying police close to the village of Chalal al-Matar.
After the explosion, there was “a direct attack with small arms.”
“An assailant has been killed and we are looking for the others,” the official added, saying that two policemen were also wounded in the attack.
An official from the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad confirmed the attack.
IS once held 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from eastern Iraq to western Syria and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.
But Iraqi forces declared victory over the Islamist group in December 2017, after its troops drove IS militants from the Syrian border zone where the Islamists’ final strongholds had been.
The group was driven from its last territory in 2019, but the UN warned in July that it remained a persistent threat.
It is estimated to have between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq, who are based mostly in rural areas and continue to carry out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.
In its report, the UN observed that despite “significant leadership losses,” the group has been able to “exploit security gaps and conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism to recruit and to organise and execute complex attacks”.
Just months after joining a significant UN women’s rights group, member states of the UN have expelled Iran. The unusual turnabout occurs as Iran is alarmed by a protest movement that was started after a young woman died while in the care of the nation’s so-called “morality police”
A resolution by the United States to “remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term” was approved by 29 members of the UN’s Economic and Social Council on Wednesday.
8 member states participated in the vote, and 8 member states abstained
Addressing the council on Wednesday, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “women and activists have appealed to us, the United Nations, for support.”
“The reason why is straightforward. The Commission is the premier UN body for promoting gender equality and empowering women. It cannot do its important work if it is being undermined from within. Iran’s membership at this moment is an ugly stain on the Commission’s credibility,” Thomas-Greenfield added.
Iran condemned the US resolution, calling it an “illegal request” and said it weakens the rule of law in the United Nations.
Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Irvani, said the resolution to remove Iran was built on “baseless claims and fabricated arguments using fake narratives,” according to state news agency IRNA on Wednesday.
Iran had only just begun its four-year term on the 45-member Commission on the Status of Women – which was created to advocate for gender equality globally – after being elected to the body in April.
In recent months, the country has been gripped by mass protests sparked by the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained in Tehran by a police unit that enforces strict dress codes for women, such as wearing the compulsory headscarf.
Iran’s demonstrations, often led by women, have since coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime. Authorities have unleashed a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, with reports of forced detentions and physical abuse being used to target the country’s Kurdish minority group.
‘A journey of a thousand lies’
Another representative from Iran’s delegation to the UN responded to the vote, saying, “My delegation condemns any politicization of women’s rights and rejects all accusations made in particular by the US and certain EU members.”
She also described Iran’s “efforts to promote and protect women’s rights” driven by the country’s “rich culture and well-established constitution.”
Iran is “a progressive society that takes into consideration the needs and listens to the voices of its women and girls eagerly and strives toward a better future for and with its women and girls,” she said.
A UN report released in March 2021 described Iranian women and girls as treated like “second class citizens.” The report cited widespread child marriage involving girls between the ages of 10 and 14, weak protections against domestic violence, and lack of legal autonomy for women, among other issues.
“Blatant discrimination exists in Iranian law and practice that must change. In several areas of their lives, including in marriage, divorce, employment, and culture, Iranian women are either restricted or need permission from their husbands or paternal guardians, depriving them of their autonomy and human dignity. These constructs are completely unacceptable and must be reformed now,” said the report’s author Javaid Rehman at the time.
Following months of protests, Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said in early December that the country’s parliament and judiciary were reviewing the law that requires women to wear a hijab in public, according to pro-reform outlet Entekhab.
But there is no evidence of what, if any, changes could be forthcoming to the law, which came into effect after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Reacting to news of Iran’s removal from the body, Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch said it was a “welcome step,” but remained a “far cry” from true accountability.
In a statement to CNN, Charbonneau added, “What’s needed is urgent coordinated pressure on Iran to end its campaign of violence, credible prosecutions of individuals who are directly responsible for these appalling violations of human rights, and an end to the severe discrimination against women.”
The Scottish government’s proposal to amend the laws governing gender recognition has the support of a UN human rights expert.
A final parliamentary vote on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill has been held.
Gender identity expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz has urged MSPs to pass the proposals into law in order to protect trans people and guarantee adherence to human rights laws.
This comes after a different UN expert claimed that men who are violent could “abuse” the system.
People will no longer require a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to apply for a gender recognition certificate under the terms of the proposed new laws.
The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which is expected to pass next week, will also reduce the time required for an applicant to live in their acquired gender.
The Scottish government argues the current process to change a person’s legal gender is too difficult and invasive.
It says there is “no evidence” women and girls will be harmed by the bill.
However critics, including Harry Potter author JK Rowling, have voiced concern that it could undermine hard fought for women’s rights.
Mr Madrigal-Borloz, the independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament on gender recognition reforms in June 2022.
In a letter published on Friday, he said the legislation would bring Scotland in line with international human right standards.
He also has expressed concern about “arbitrary obstacles” for legally recognising gender identity. He said such measures contravene human rights obligations, branding them “authoritarian and anti-democratic”.
And he said any efforts to water down the legislation could be born ofprejudice against trans women – who are “among the most vilified, disenfranchised and stigmatised” people in the world.
He added: “Through my work in dozens of countries I have witnessed shocking acts of violence to which they are subjected, including killings, torture, beatings, and systematic social exclusion from health, employment, housing, and education.
“United Nations human rights bodies that have spoken on the matter have constantly found that legal recognition of gender identity through self-identification is the most efficient and appropriate way to ensure the enjoyment of human rights, and I am yet to learn of a country in which this is not the case.”
Reform fears ‘not supported by evidence’
In theory, only a small number of people would be directly affected by any reforms, with the NHS estimating that transgender people make up about 0.5% of the population.
However, some campaigners are concerned that allowing anyone to “self-identify” as a woman could impact on the rights women have fought for decades to secure, and which are themselves enshrined in equalities law.
There are also concerns about access to women-only spaces and services, including hospital wards and refuges.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that some people have “genuinely held concerns” about the plans but argued that others have latched onto the issue to spread transphobia.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Campaigners have raised concerns about the gender recognition reforms
Mr Madrigal-Borloz, a senior visiting researcher at the Harvard University Law School Human Rights Program, argued the evidence from other countries where self-identification is standard does not support fears about abuse of the system by predatory males.
“Throughout history, unsubstantiated myths falsely portraying marginalized groups of people as dangerous to others have been levelled to try to justify imposing arbitrary and deeply discriminatory restrictions on their human rights,” he said.
“As recently as a few decades ago in the UK, and still today in many other countries around the world, such harmful myths falsely portrayed lesbian women and gay men as predatory – causing great harm. Today, we see such harmful narratives repackaged and redeployed against trans women.”
Safety fears
Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, warned last month that the Scottish bill could endanger people.
She said it “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a gender certificate and the rights that are associated with it”.
“This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity (including women born female, transwomen, and gender non-conforming women),” she wrote in a letter to the UK government.
Haiti’s UN humanitarian coordinator has revealed that , cholera has already claimed the lives of 283 people in the Caribbean country and more than 14,000 suspected cases have been reported. Due to the insecurity, about 155,000 people have been internally displaced.
As nearly 20,000 people in Port-au-Prince experience “catastrophic famine-like conditions” due to a cholera outbreak, gangs who control nearly 60% of the city’s population are tearing apart society, a senior UN official has warned.
Ulrika Richardson, the nation’s UN humanitarian coordinator, said at a news conference that the gangs are using “terrifying levels” of sexual violence “as a weapon” to control populations, instil fear, and punish them.
The fight for territory has “a human cost” and what people are facing on an everyday basis is “enormous”, she added, warning that if the issue is not addressed now, it will be “very difficult in terms of social cohesion and reconciliation”.
She said all but 1,000 of the 20,000 Haitians facing starvation are in the capital, Port-au-Prince, mainly in the Cite Soleil slum controlled by the gangs.
Image: A woman with her daughter who is stricken with cholera at a clinic in Port-au-Prince. Pic: AP
This comes as the cholera outbreak in the Caribbean nation “continues to be a worry”.
The illness has caused at least 283 deaths so far and close to 12,000 people have been treated in hospital since 2 October.
There are more than 14,000 suspected cases throughout the country, and infections have been confirmed in eight of Haiti’s 10 regions.
An emergency appeal aimed at raising more than $145m (£118m) to contain the spread of cholera in the nation was launched in November. Around $23.5m (£19.2m) has been donated so far, said Ms Richardson.
Image:Rose Delpe cries as people are displaced by gang war violence in Haiti
‘Massive displacement’
Political instability has simmered since the unsolved assassination last year of President Jovenal Moise, who had faced protests calling for his resignation over corruption charges.
Insecurity in the country has led to the “massive” internal displacement of 155,000 people fleeing their homes – a 77% increase since August.
Many are the “most vulnerable”, such as women and families, who are in temporary sites or being hosted in communities.
Image: Ulrika Richardson
Ms Richardson said they are working with institutions to figure out how to address the issue since those hosting the displaced have “meagre” resources.
School closures have affected around four million children, many of whom have not received proper education since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the humanitarian chief.
In a more positive development, more than half of schools have now opened, said Ms Richardson. Although, there is “disparity” in that most of them are in the south.
“We have logistical challenges, you can imagine, and the security challenge, but we are able to be present and we are able to help people,” she said.
“We are obviously focusing on the most vulnerable, but we also try not to lose focus on the real structural root causes.
“So, we have corruption, we have impunity, we have governance, and all of that needs to really be at the centre also of our thinking as we go forward.”
UN investigation has revealed that ,at least 131 civilians were killed in a November attack by the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the UN report, the massacre occurred in two villages, Kishishe and Bambo, in the Rutsuhuru district of the eastern North Kivu province.
According to investigators, the attack appeared to be retaliation for the government’s current offensive against the insurgents.
M23 denied the massacre, blaming only eight deaths on “stray bullets.”
But the UN’s Monusco peacekeeping mission in the country said 102 men, 17 women and 12 children were “arbitrarily executed” by the rebel group “as part of reprisals against the civilian population”.
At least 22 women and five girls were also raped, the report said
“This violence was carried out as part of a campaign of murders, rapes, kidnappings and looting against two villages in the Rutshuru territory as reprisals for the clashes between the M23” and other armed groups, including the FDLR, the statement said, adding that the true number of killed could be even higher.
It also said that M23 fighters then buried the bodies of the victims in “what may be an attempt to destroy evidence”.
The government had initially said that over 300 civilians were killed in the attack, which took place between 29-30 November. But its spokesman Patrick Muyaya accepted on Monday that it was difficult to arrive at a firm figure as the region was under M23 occupation.
Congolese authorities have described the killings as war crimes and called for deeper investigation, while protests have been organised in the capital, Kinshasa and Goma, the main city in North Kivu.
Investigators said they couldn’t access the villages where the massacre occurred, but they interviewed 52 victims and direct witnesses who fled the attack in the town of Rwindi about 20km (12 miles) away.
“MONUSCO condemns in the strongest terms the unspeakable violence against civilians and calls for unrestricted access to the scene and the victims for emergency humanitarian assistance,” the investigators said.
An M23 spokesperson rejected the UN’s findings and insisted that it had “asked that there be investigations together with us in Kishishe but the UN never came”.
“The UN is under pressure from the government to come up with a figure, even if it is false,” spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said.
The M23 group was formed a decade ago. It says it is defending the interests of ethnic Tutsis living in DR Congo against Hutu militias and has been involved in a long-running conflict against the central government.
After lying dormant for several years, it took up arms again last year and has been leading an offensive in eastern DRC against the Congolese army.
The massacres in Kishishe and Bambo followed clashes with the FDLR militia, which includes some of the ethnic Hutu leaders of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda who fled across the border into what is now DR Congo.
The M23 has meanwhile accused pro-government forces of “genocide and targeted killings” against the Tutsi community. It said its positions in Bwiza were attacked on Tuesday, despite the current ceasefire agreement.
The M23 has said it is ready to withdraw from the some of the territory it controls. It made the announcement on Tuesday following peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, even though it did not attend the talks.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi has accused neighbouring Rwanda of seeking to destabilase the country by providing weapons to the rebels, an allegation recently endorsed by UN experts. However, this has been denied by the Rwandan government.
More than 100 different armed groups operate in the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, which has been ravaged by conflict for about three decades.
Several countries have sent troops to DR Congo this year as part of an East African Community (EAC) taskforce to try and disarm the groups and bring peace to the area.
Over 130 civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have been killed.
According to a UN assessment, the M23 rebel group was responsible for at least 131 deaths at the end of November this year.
Investigations, according to the report, have established that there were fatalities among civilians in two villages, Kishishe and Bambo, in the Rutsuhuru district of North Kivu province.
According to the UN, the victims were put to death in what seemed to be retaliation for the current government offensive.
In retaliation for the battles between the M23 and other groups, it claims that “this brutality was carried out as part of a campaign of killings, rapes, kidnappings, and looting against two villages in the Rutshuru region.”
The future of the UN mission in Mali(Minusma), according to Mali’s transition leader Col Assimi Goita, will rely heavily on a change in strategy and better relations with the country’s army.
Col Goita tweeted that he had met with UN Chief of Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who is on a two-day tour in Mali ahead of Minusma’s mandate renewal.
The state-linked L’Essor quoted Mr Lacroix as saying that this was about ensuring there was an agreement between Mali and the UN “so that when the time comes, the recommendations at the level of the [UN] Security Council are in line with the objectives of the Malian authorities”.
UN peacekeepers have been in the country since 2013, but relations with Bamako have recently deteriorated.
Several countries, including Germany and Cote D’Ivoire, have announced plans to withdraw from the mission or scale down their presence.
The United Nationsand its partners have launched an unprecedented $51.5 billion aid appeal for 2023, with tens of millions more people expected to require humanitarian assistance.
According to the UN Global Humanitarian Overview, an additional 65 million people will require assistance next year, bringing the total to 339 million across 68 countries.
That is more than 4% of the world’s population, or roughly the population of the United States.
“It’s a phenomenal number and it’s a depressing number,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva on Thursday, adding that it meant “next year is going to be the biggest humanitarian programme” the world has ever seen.
“Humanitarian needs are shockingly high, as this year’s extreme events are spilling into 2023,” Griffiths said, citing the war in Ukraine and drought in the Horn of Africa.
“For people on the brink, this appeal is a lifeline.”
More than 100 million people have been driven from their homes as conflict and climate change heighten a displacement crisis.
The overlapping crises have already left the world dealing with the “largest global food crisis in modern history”, the UN warned.
It pointed out that at least 222 million people across 53 countries were expected to face acute food shortages by the end of this year, with 45 million of them facing the risk of starvation.
“Five countries already are experiencing what we call famine-like conditions, in which we can confidently, unhappily, say that people are dying as a result,” Griffiths said.
Those countries – Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan – have seen portions of their populations face “catastrophic hunger” this year, but have not yet seen countrywide famines declared.
Meanwhile, nine months of war between Russia and Ukraine have disrupted food exports and about 45 million people in 37 countries are currently facing starvation, the report said.
This year’s appeal represents a 25 percent increase compared with last year.
But donor funding is already under strain with the multiple crises. The UN faces the biggest funding gap ever, with its appeals funded only about 53 percent in 2022, based on data through to mid-November.
“Humanitarian organisations are therefore forced to decide who to target with the funds available,” a UN statement said.
![More than 2,500 schools are unusable, according to UNICEF, as they have been destroyed, converted for military purposes, or used to shelter the displaced [File: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com03/2015-04-07T000000Z_977788139_GF10000051524_RTRMADP_3_YEMEN-SECURITY.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
