Health

In Haiti, the UN’s humanitarian country team is sounding the alarm about the need for enhanced preparedness ahead of the Atlantic hurricane season. Amid severe funding shortfalls, contingency stocks are at their lowest levels ever, as 5.7 million people face severe food insecurity.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, François Batalingaya, said today the country is in crisis with the east reaching a breaking point. Floods impacted nearly 2 million people last year; 3 million people are struggling to feed themselves. The $1.4 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 9 per cent funded.

In Ukraine, attacks across the country, which started last night and continued this morning, have reportedly killed over 45 civilians. The UN and humanitarian partners are providing immediate assistance in the impacted regions, including construction materials, hygiene kits, emergency shelter and psychological support.

While the world is tantalizingly close to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, the risk of backsliding is great due to shortfalls in funding, lack of political will and intersecting inequalities, the General Assembly heard today.

In Bangladesh, where monsoon rains and high winds triggered landslides, floods and damage across the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, the International Organization for Migration, in coordination with State authorities, launched an emergency response to support emergency relocations and rescue operations.

In Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the catastrophic situation there is the worst since the war began. Strikes have continued across Gaza, particularly in north Gaza, where the last remaining partially functioning hospital, Al Awda, was forced to evacuate last night.

UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo helped the country’s armed forces Wednesday respond to armed clashes in Ituri Province near a market in Fataki that caused civilians to flee. Earlier this week, they enrolled over 1,000 ex-combatants from the Zaire armed group into community reinsertion projects.

A new World Meteorological Organization report forecast global temperatures will continue at or near record levels in the next five years, increasing climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development, with an 86 per cent chance that at least one year will be over 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

In Myanmar, a new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the vast majority of the country’s people are united in their defiance of military authoritarianism and violence.

In Chad, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Thomas Fletcher has allocated $2.5 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to urgently respond to the massive influx of refugees and returnees in the east of the country from Sudan. This brings CERF's total allocation to Chad this year to $16 million.