Humanitarian issues

As Ramadan begins, the soaring cost of food staples in import-dependent Middle Eastern and North African countries is creating ever greater challenges for millions of families already struggling to keep hunger at bay, the World Food Programme said, warning that millions will struggle to buy even basic foods.

Nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide, about 121 million a year, are unintended, a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says, warning the Ukraine and other conflicts are expected to drive an increase through disruption of access to contraception and growing sexual violence.

The United Nations remains concerned about reports of continued tensions in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.  All efforts must be made to ensure full respect for the ceasefire and full implementation of agreed commitments.

There can be no atonement if there is no repair, the keynote speaker during the General Assembly’s annual event commemorating the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade said today, as many speakers joined the growing calls for reparations to the descendants of human beings bought and sold as chattel for generations.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has created not only an immediate humanitarian crisis, but also a threat to future global food security in the form of rising prices and decreased production capabilities, speakers told the Security Council today, underscoring the need to urgently address these issues against the backdrop of Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting for negotiations in Istanbul.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees today said the number of Nicaraguan refugees and asylum seekers in Costa Rica has doubled in the last eight months, reaching more than 150,000 people.  This represents 3 per cent of Costa Rica’s total population of 5 million.

Continuing its emergency special session today, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing that the Russian Federation’s military offensive inside Ukraine — and its humanitarian consequences — are on a scale that the international community has not seen in Europe in many decades.

The committee tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution resumed its difficult deliberations this week, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy told the Security Council today, calling for urgent compromise to pave a peaceful path forward as the country marks 11 years of gruesome conflict.

In Tajikistan, the United Nations is mobilizing $40 million to help authorities address the needs of over 14,000 refugees and asylum seekers, nearly all of them from Afghanistan.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is coordinating the effort, with over 30 humanitarian and development partners.

The General Assembly resumed its emergency special session today to discuss two competing draft resolutions on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine — one that implicates the Russian Federation’s military offensive in the unfolding humanitarian crisis and the other that makes no mention of Moscow’s aggression against its neighbour.