Bangladesh

The number of Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar and arrived in Bangladesh in the past month has reached 436,000.  Aid agencies have reached more than 80 per cent of these people with food aid and are scaling up their support.

The Americas have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), a disease that used to be responsible for the deaths of more than 10,000 newborns every year in the region, according to the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and UNICEF.

Only 15 countries have three essential national policies supporting families with young children, according to a new UNICEF report, “Early Moments Matter for Every Child”.  They offer two years of [free] pre-primary education; breastfeeding breaks for new mothers in the first six months; and adequate parental leave.

The Secretary-General spoke at a high-level meeting on reform of the United Nations.  He stressed that the true test will be measured through tangible results in the lives of the people the Organization serves — and the trust of those who support its work through their hard-earned resources.

The United Nations Environment Programme is launching a campaign to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Montreal Protocol and its success in protecting Earth against ozone depletion.  The “Ozone Heroes” campaign seeks to raise awareness of collective efforts to tackle climate change and the depletion of the ozone layer.

An upsurge of violence in the Central African Republic has caused a 50 per cent increase in the number of internally displaced people this year to a total of nearly 600,000. Fighting has engulfed territories that had been relatively stable, including Basse-Kotto, Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou, with almost 70 per cent of the country now in the hands of armed groups.

An estimated 370,000 Rohingya refugees have fled into Bangladesh since 25 August.  A flight chartered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees carrying emergency aid has landed in that country.  A second flight, donated by the United Arab Emirates, was carrying 2,000 tents.  The supplies will help 25,000 refugees.

The number of migrant deaths and disappearances over the past three years is likely to be much higher than the 23,000 that the International Organization for Migration has reported globally since 2014, since many deaths are not recorded, according to a report released by the agency today.

Mark Lowcock, the new head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), will travel to Niger and Nigeria from 9 to 12 September to raise the profile of the Lake Chad Basin crisis impacting some 17 million people.  He will seek additional humanitarian support to avert the risk of famine.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres: