Noon Briefings

The Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the State of Palestine’s Minister for Social Development launched a $350 million humanitarian response plan today aimed at providing critical aid to 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, amid rising challenges.

The High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration launched their regional refugee and migrant response plan for Venezuela, the first of its kind in the Americas.  The plan will respond to the needs of Venezuelans on the move, and for next year require $378 million.

The United Nations [Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization] Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, strongly condemns the attacks by unidentified armed persons that led to the execution of civilians in the localities of Tinabaw and Tabangout-Tissalatatene, in Menaka region, on Tuesday and Wednesday.  MINUSMA is in contact with authorities to establish the facts.

Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock announced today a $10 million regional contribution from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) towards mitigating the possible impact of the current Ebola outbreak in the Demoractic Republic of the Congo should it spread to neighbouring countries.

Special projects funded by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan are improving the lives of communities countrywide by providing access to clean water, education and health care as well as safe houses for vulnerable women, and by strengthening the justice system to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to account.

With Yazidi activist and gender-based violence survivor Nadia Murad having officially received the Nobel Peace Prize today, UNICEF is shining a spotlight on the plight of hundreds of thousands of uprooted children in Iraq whose lives are threatened by freezing temperatures and floods across much of the country.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says nearly 1,500 civilian casualties in Yemen were reported in the period between August and October 2018.  This means an average of 123 civilian deaths and injuries every week during this period.  UNHCR urges parties to the conflict in Yemen to improve the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today it had evacuated 133 refugees from Libya to Niger, most of them women and children who were previously detained in Libya.

In Katowice, Poland, today the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a report which says that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone.

UNESCO today launched its Atlas on the retreat of Andean glaciers and reduction of glacial waters.  The atlas shows that if trends continue, some of the lower-altitude glaciers of the tropical Andes could lose 78 to 97 per cent of their volume by the end of the century, reducing the region’s freshwater resources.