Children

As of today, some 664,000 people remain newly displaced across Syria, mostly in Idlib and Aleppo, marking a decrease of about 64,000 people compared to a week ago. UN reports say that returnee movements remain fluid, with nearly 486,000 people having returned to their areas of origin over the past month.

The Security Council today adopted a resolution highlighting the need for sustainable child protection capacities in United Nations peace operations and the importance of their smooth, responsible transfer to the Organization’s country teams during mission transitions or withdrawals.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today released its first major global assessment of salt-affected soils in 50 years. It shows that nearly 1.4 billion hectares of land — which is about 10 per cent of the total global land area — are already impacted by salinity.

After the examination of the eighth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Sudan (S/2024/443) and the adoption of conclusions on the report, the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict agreed to address the following messages through a public statement by the Chair of the Working Group.

As the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine advances past the thousandth-day mark and ratchets up in intensity, it is “upending the lives of children”, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, at a meeting in which speakers debated the findings of a recent investigation suggesting that Moscow has a programme facilitating the systematic transfer, adoption and naturalization of Ukrainian children.

In Sudan, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that since the war began 19 months ago there, the first domestic UN flight travelled today from Port Sudan to Kassala. The WFP-managed flights will now offer regular flights to transport aid workers and light humanitarian cargo from Port Sudan to Kassala once a week.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message, as delivered by Muhannad Hadi, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to the International Conference on the Role of the International Community and Civil Society Organizations in Promoting and Respecting the Rights of the Palestinian Child, in Amman today:

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for World Children’s Day, observed on 20 November:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the high-level event on Ending Violence against Children, today:

The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, in connection with the examination of the sixth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Philippines (document S/2022/569), agreed to address the following messages through a public statement by the Chair of the Working Group: