The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria said today that humanitarian needs there are unprecedented. Today, 14.6 million men, women and children require aid, which is an increase of 1.2 million people from 2021 and the highest level since the crisis began.
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Noon Briefings
The Secretary-General of the United Nations today addressed the 2022 Ocean Conference opening ceremony, along with the leaders of the two co-hosting nations, Portugal and Kenya, warning that the world’s failure to care for the ocean will have ripple effects across the entire 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development.
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs allocated $4 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to respond to the crisis in Mali’s Ménaka region, where armed clashes since March have killed hundreds of people and triggered the displacement of an estimated 56,000 people, nearly two‑thirds of them women and children.
Ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) ministerial meeting on global food security, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today appealed for $1.2 billion to meet urgent needs of 8 million children at risk of death from severe wasting.
In Yemen, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that aid agencies remain concerned that the humanitarian crisis there will deteriorate sharply in the coming months largely due to economic problems, including a weaker currency and higher prices due to the Ukraine war.
The United Nations Children’s Fund is providing emergency relief in Bangladesh to people stranded by recent floods — including 1.6 million children — and is dispatching, among other things, 400,000 water purification tablets for 80,000 households and emergency medical supplies for district health facilities.
In Ukraine, United Nations humanitarian partners said that intense hostilities were reported over the weekend, across Government and non-Government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.
A newly released World Health Organization report finds that nearly a billion people worldwide live with a mental disorder. It identifies public health crises, inequality, war and climate change as major health threats, and shows that depression and anxiety spiked more than 25 per cent in 2020.
In Sri Lanka, the World Food Programme (WFP) is launching its emergency response in the country amid the escalating food crisis. WFP is working to provide life-saving food, cash and voucher assistance to 3 million of the most vulnerable people who can no longer meet their food needs due to the economic crisis there.
Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and this year’s theme is “Combating Elder Abuse”. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year, one in six people aged 60 and older experience some form of abuse.