Central African Republic

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the parties to the Syrian conflict to allow badly needed food and medical supplies to get into Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, where at least 350,000 civilians remain besieged.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that civilians continue to flee their homes in northern Iraq, with at least 166,000 people currently displaced, the majority from Kirkuk.  Aid workers are helping people in need where they have access, providing food, water, blankets and other supplies.

Humanitarian colleagues in Syria are deeply concerned about the situation for civilians in East Ghouta where children are reportedly suffering from severe acute malnutrition.  The last United Nations inter-agency convoy reached the besieged enclave on 23 September with assistance for 25,000 people.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is increasingly concerned by escalating displacement in several key regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 3.9 million people are internally displaced and the challenges of getting aid to people in need are growing fast.

It will take more than 100 years to end child marriage in West and Central Africa at current rates of reduction, UNICEF reported today.  The new projections, released during a high-level meeting on ending child marriage in Dakar, Senegal, this week, aim to bring the spotlight on the region where girls face the highest risk of marrying in childhood.

Approximately 589,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since 25 August, with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) saying today that nearly 7,000 Rohingya refugees have been admitted to Bangladesh after being stranded at the border for up to four days.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged Australia to address the imminent humanitarian crisis for refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea, stressing his profound concern over the risks of “offshore processing” arrangements, for which Australia seeks to decrease support by the end of October.

Concluding a visit to the Central African Republic, Adama Dieng, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, told press in Bangui that those responsible for atrocities and those instrumental in inciting ethnic and religious hatred would be held responsible and would have to face justice.

On 6 September 2017, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic held its first open briefing since its establishment to all Member States on the midterm report of the Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic and on national implementation of sanctions measures by regional States.  The meeting was held in pursuance of paragraph 20 of resolution 2339 (2017), by which the Security Council encouraged the Chair to hold regular consultations with concerned Member States, international and regional and subregional organizations, in particular neighbouring and regional States, in order to ensure full implementation of sanctions measures.

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.