Schools for more than 168 million children around the world have been closed for an entire year due to lockdowns, a report from UNICEF says, noting that around 214 million children globally, or one in seven, have missed more than three quarters of their in-person learning. The most vulnerable may never return, it warns.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya today strongly encouraged the House of Representatives to consider the vote of confidence in the cabinet to be proposed by the Prime Minister-designate. The Mission also said it is not in a position to comment on allegations of bribery during the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum.
The Secretary-General regrets the use of violence and the subsequent loss of life reported at the residence of the presidential candidate Yaya Dillo in N’Djamena, Chad. He deplores the use of force in the context of the electoral process and urges the authorities to foster an inclusive political process.
United Nations Children’s Fund Representative (UNICEF) in Nigeria Peter Hawkins calls on those responsible for the mass abduction of girls from a State-run school in Zamfara to release them immediately and for the Government to take steps to ensure their safe release and the safety of other schoolchildren in the country.
The United Nations team, led by Resident Coordinator Stefan Priesner, is helping authorities in Malaysia launch a national COVID-19 vaccination programme. More than 500,000 people have registered to receive the vaccine, which aims to reach 80 per cent of the population, 24 million people, by March 2022.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration today began preparing asylum seekers in the Matamoros camp for entry to the United States as the country ends a policy that forced some 25,000 people to wait in Mexico for their immigration hearings.
The number of civilians killed and injured in Afghanistan rose following the start of peace negotiations in September, according to report released today by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Organization’s human rights office. The country remains among the deadliest for civilians.
Cabo Verde is among the first African countries to receive the first allocation of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX facility, the United Nations team there reports. In the next few weeks, thanks to additional World Bank funding of $5 million, Cabo Verde will be able to buy vaccines for almost 35 per cent of the population.
Ten years into Syria’s crisis, humanitarian needs are deepening, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says, with an estimated 13.4 million people requiring protection and assistance, up more than 2 million people from 2020. Nearly 60 per cent of the population is food insecure.
In north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations vaccination teams are supporting the Ebola response by rehabilitating treatment centres and boosting contact-tracing capacity, and today began a four-day mission to Guinea to assess the situation in Nzérékoré, where the first Ebola case was reported.