Americas

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme today jointly warned that funding shortages, conflict and disasters — as well as supply chain challenges, rising food prices and loss of income due to COVID-19 — threaten to leave millions of refugees across Africa without food.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the extraordinary intersessional Summit of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, in New York today:

An Ebola outbreak has been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s western Equateur province.  The health ministry has identified six cases, including four people who have died.  The World Health Organization has staff in Mbandaka, the main city impacted by the outbreak, to support the response.

The United Nations and the Government of Bangladesh are making preparations as Super Cyclone Storm Amphan approaches landfall tomorrow, potentially impacting more than 14 million people in the country.  The Humanitarian Coordination Task Team and the Government are working on preparedness and response activities.

Today on International Nurses Day, the World Health Organization remind us that as the world struggles to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic there is an urgent shortage of nurses worldwide. Almost 6 million more are needed, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Anti-coronavirus measures are exposing victims of human trafficking to further exploitation and limiting their access to essential services, a new analysis released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said today, noting also the emergence of new opportunities for organized crime to profit from the crisis.

In the Americas, chronic overcrowding, unhygienic conditions and lack of health‑care access have led to COVID-19 infections among thousands of inmates and prison officials.  The Human Rights High Commissioner urged States to ensure widespread access to testing and care for detainees, and both testing and protective gear for staff.

COVID-19 is has pushed nearly 4 million Haitians – about 1 in 3 people – into acute food insecurity, with 1 million people now in a situation of severe hunger, a Government study found.  In the first four months of 2020, the World Food Programme reached 200,000 people, and restarted emergency food and cash distributions.

Three new Ebola cases were confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 10 April, with more expected to be identified, as the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee concluded that the outbreak still constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

A new International Labour Organization report finds that COVID-19 is expected to wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.  The report highlights the worst affected sectors and regions, and outlines policies to mitigate the crisis.