The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees airlifted emergency relief items to Chad on 19 March, responding to the humanitarian needs of some 10,000 Sudanese refugees.  Clashes in Sudan’s West Darfur region since late 2019 have forced more than 16,000 people, mostly women and children, to cross the border into Chad.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Violet Kakyoma of Uganda as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Chad, with the host Government’s approval.

More than 210,000 people in Chad have been affected by widespread flooding following heavy rains over the past few months and need food, shelter and non-food items, according to the Chadian Red Cross.  The United Nations and humanitarian partners plan to scale up the aid response, but have very limited resources.

The United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) announced the completion of the first exhumation of a Yazidi mass grave in Iraq’s Sinjar region, in the village of Kojo.

The Secretary-General extended his condolences on Sunday to the Government of Haiti and the families of the victims of the earthquake that struck north of Port-de-Paix.  The United Nations and its partners are helping the Government assess the needs of the population impacted by the quake.

Amid Chad’s worst nutrition crisis, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator will visit a centre in N’Djamena to highlight joint aid efforts.  They will also travel to Borno State, Nigeria, to visit a site for internally displaced persons.

Recovery and response efforts are continuing in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic following the 23 July dam collapse, according to the humanitarian community.  The United Nations is working closely with the Government to provide any support requested.

The latest report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization warns today that time is running out for the world’s forests, whose total area is shrinking every day.  Forests provide around 20 per cent of income for rural households in developing countries and fuel for cooking and heating for 1 in every 3 people around the world.

Thousands of Rohingya people continue fleeing Myanmar’s Rakhine State and describe continued violence and human rights abuses, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, told the Human Rights Council yesterday, warning that the international community will not forget the outrages committed.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over the murder of three human rights defenders working with indigenous and peasants’ rights organizations in Guatemala during the last 10 days, calling for a prompt investigation into those and other attacks against rights defenders, and accountability for the perpetrators.