Cyprus

Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien travelled to Somalia today to assess the impact of the drought which has left the country on the brink of famine.  He met with humanitarian partners to discuss ways to scale up the response to save lives, and called on all parties to step up efforts to facilitate increased humanitarian access.

United Nations staff in Yemen report that the first humanitarian truck from Ibb since August 2016 arrived in Taizz City today with eight tonnes of medicines and medical equipment, after authorities blocked a visit by United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien to Taizz City on 28 February.

The new Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations, Komelios Korneliou, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.

The Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) until 31 July 2017 today, while encouraging the divided island nation’s leaders to “grasp the current opportunity” of recent progress in negotiations to secure a comprehensive settlement of the dispute between them.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said authorities must cooperate to resolve the electricity crisis in Gaza, noting that he is closely following the tense situation unfolding mid-winter after 2 million Palestinians can access only two hours of electric power daily.

This morning the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations briefed the Security Council on Darfur.  Although there been a decrease in armed conflict in Darfur, he said, civilians had remained exposed to significant sources of insecurity such as intercommunal conflict and criminality.