In Asia, a strong monsoon season has caused floods and landslides over the past week, killing hundreds of people, displacing millions and destroying infrastructure. The United Nations and aid partners are supporting Government-led responses in several countries despite COVID-19-related logistical challenges.
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The Beirut port is temporarily operational, with nearly 9,000 containers unloaded between 11 and 18 August, including 1,000 tons of goods such as iron and wheat. The High Commissioner for Refugees is providing psychosocial support, emergency help cash and shelter kits, one of several United Nations agencies to offer emergency assistance.
There is a real danger that the global health crisis will create a COVID-19 generation who lose out on schooling and see their opportunities permanently damaged, warned Gordon Brown, Special Envoy on Global Education, noting that an estimated 30 million children may never return to school, according to UNESCO.
In a note issued on Friday, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Bolivia, Jean Arnault, welcomed the agreement reached among the Executive Branch, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly and the Plurinational Electoral Organ regarding the 2020 general elections.
Following explosions in Beirut on 4 August, the United Nations is requesting $565 million to help Lebanon move towards recovery and reconstruction. Peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also donating blood and have joined the “#UN4Beirut” initiative to clean up devastated city streets.
Thérèse Gastaut, a former Spokeswoman for the United Nations in Geneva, passed away last night. She ably served the Organization for 37 years and held positions in the Department of Public Information in New York, Geneva and Brussels. Thérèse had the United Nations in her blood and in her heart.
An inter-agency United Nations team arrived in Mauritius yesterday to support the Government-led response to the oil spill that is impacting the country, Christine Umutoni, Resident Coordinator in the island nation says. They will also engage local communities and the private sector.
Polio immunization campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, months after COVID-19 left 50 million children without their polio vaccines, UNICEF said today. There is concern that up to 1 million children in Afghanistan could miss out as door-to-door vaccinations are not possible in some areas.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported today that its engineering troops, together with local youth, are repairing flood-damaged levees in Jonglei state, already saving Bor’s main market and hospital from being submerged by flooding, which has so far displaced an estimated 135,000 people in the area.
In Somalia, more than 150,000 people have fled their homes since late June — including 230,000 in the last week alone — due to flooding in the south. Some 650,000 people across the country having been displaced by heavy rains since January, with many now living in overcrowded, makeshift shelters. Food is in short supply and many are going hungry.