From illicit trafficking in the Sahel, to post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire and innumerable abuses against civilians in the Central African Republic, mercenary activities in Africa are a serious concern and must command greater attention, senior officials told the Security Council today as they debated solutions to an often-invisible scourge.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to a high-level debate of the Security Council on mercenary activities in Africa, in New York today:
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Edward Kallon, expressed grave concern following the upsurge in violence in the country’s north-east that has led to massive displacement and created “a humanitarian tragedy”. Some 260 aid workers have been withdrawn from impacted areas since last November.
Ensuring full respect for human rights will be key for the success of several elections due to take place in 2019 in West Africa and the Sahel amidst a highly challenging security environment, the head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) told the Security Council today.
The Sahel is awash with challenges — from food insecurity and terrorist-related security threats to the negative impacts of climate change — but it has the potential to change for the better through an ongoing focus on sustainable development, speakers in the Security Council agreed today.
Once limited to transiting cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs to destinations abroad, West and Central African countries have now become both users and producers of those substances, the United Nations anti-crime chief told the Security Council today, noting that the region accounted for 87 per cent of all pharmaceutical opioids seizures identified in his office’s latest report.
Central and West African countries must develop strategies with which to tackle the root causes of insurgency, the senior United Nations official in the region told the Security Council today as it considered the activities of the United Nations regional office.
Robust and coherent cooperation among the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations will be key in tackling increasingly complex global challenges, delegates stressed in the Security Council today, with many expressing support for a proposal to formally finance African Union-led peace operations with United Nations assessed contributions.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today it had evacuated 133 refugees from Libya to Niger, most of them women and children who were previously detained in Libya.
In Katowice, Poland, today the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a report which says that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone.
