Human rights

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day for People of African Descent, observed on 31 August:

To mark the seventh International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism on 21 August, the United Nations will organize a virtual high-level event titled “Voices for Peace: Victims of Terrorism as Peace Advocates and Educators”.

In Ukraine, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator there condemned an overnight attack in the Donetsk region, in the eastern part of the country, where a transit centre for displaced people was damaged. The site in Pokrovsk Town was sheltering people who had fled earlier hostilities.

In Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that repeated waves of displacement — combined with overcrowding, insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, active hostilities and limited services — is worsening the humanitarian situation there, which is already catastrophic.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) reports that following negotiations it dismantled a militia camp set up by the CODECO armed group in a school in Fataki, in Ituri Province. Nearly 450 students that had been forced to relocate can now return to school for the upcoming year.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, observed on 22 August:

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial in Poland, for Holocaust Memorial Day for Roma and Sinti, observed today:

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, observed on 9 August:

At least 53 Palestinian detainees are known to have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since last October, according to a UN human rights office report published today on arbitrary, prolonged and incommunicado detentions, impacting thousands of Palestinians, including UN staff.