Health authorities in Guinea, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), have confirmed the country’s first case of Marburg virus. The United Nations team on the ground is bolstering urgent infection prevention and control measures, such as contact tracing, while strengthening treatment capacity and risk communication.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regained access to two refugee camps previously cut off by clashes in Ethiopia’s Tigray Province. It is calling for urgent support amid rising displacement, as well as safe passage to transfer refugees to a safer site, 135 kilometres away.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said today that, despite numerous challenges, it has delivered food to more than a million people in the north-western and parts of southern Tigray in June and July. More than 175 trucks arrived in Tigray during the first week of August, and an additional 90 are expected in the coming days.
Humanitarian officials warn that, without sustained funding, millions of people in in north-eastern Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states will struggle to feed themselves during the lean season due to conflict, COVID-19, high food prices and the effects of climate change.
The World Health Organization reported that weekly deaths from COVID-19 in Africa reached a record peak in the week ending 1 August, with more than 6,400 deaths recorded — the highest seven-day toll since the onset of the pandemic in Africa. South Africa and Tunisia accounted for more than 55 per cent of the fatalities.
A United Nations report details today the worsening human rights situation in the Central African Republic in the past year, attributing responsibility for 54 per cent of the documented incidents to armed groups, and the remainder to national defence and security forces, bilateral personnel and private military contractors.
A new report by the United Nations Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stresses the need to prevent torture in places of detention in Iraq, including the Kurdistan region. “No circumstances, however exceptional, justify torture,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Special Representative in the country.
In Myanmar, at least 930 people, many of them women and children, have been killed at the hands of security forces since 1 February, while thousands more have been injured, the United Nations team there reports. At least 3,000 remain under detention, as the protracted crisis impacts humanitarian access to people in need.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) say in a new report that conflict, coronavirus and the climate crisis are likely to increase hunger in 23 countries in the next four months. Ethiopia and Madagascar are the world’s newest “highest alert” hunger hotspots, the report states.
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) reports that yesterday, peacekeepers repelled two attacks against its patrols, the first in Kidal and the second north of Douentza, in the Mopti Region. MINUSMA has seen 15 attacks against its peacekeepers in the past three weeks.