Humanitarian issues

Following explosions in Beirut on 4 August, the United Nations is requesting $565 million to help Lebanon move towards recovery and reconstruction.  Peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also donating blood and have joined the “#UN4Beirut” initiative to clean up devastated city streets.

Thérèse Gastaut, a former Spokeswoman for the United Nations in Geneva, passed away last night.  She ably served the Organization for 37 years and held positions in the Department of Public Information in New York, Geneva and Brussels.  Thérèse had the United Nations in her blood and in her heart.

An inter-agency United Nations team arrived in Mauritius yesterday to support the Government-led response to the oil spill that is impacting the country, Christine Umutoni, Resident Coordinator in the island nation says.  They will also engage local communities and the private sector.

Polio immunization campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, months after COVID-19 left 50 million children without their polio vaccines, UNICEF said today.  There is concern that up to 1 million children in Afghanistan could miss out as door-to-door vaccinations are not possible in some areas.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported today that its engineering troops, together with local youth, are repairing flood-damaged levees in Jonglei state, already saving Bor’s main market and hospital from being submerged by flooding, which has so far displaced an estimated 135,000 people in the area.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to a briefing on the humanitarian situation in Lebanon, in New York today:

In Somalia, more than 150,000 people have fled their homes since late June — including 230,000 in the last week alone — due to flooding in the south.  Some 650,000 people across the country having been displaced by heavy rains since January, with many now living in overcrowded, makeshift shelters.  Food is in short supply and many are going hungry.

A flight carrying ventilators, protective masks and other essential medical supplies landed in Papua New Guinea today, marking the start of the World Food Programme’s humanitarian air service for the Pacific, which aims to help the region’s countries and territories bolster the Covid-19 pandemic response.

Adopted 21 years ago, the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour reached universal ratification, with Tonga depositing its instruments.  The International Labour Organization estimates there are 152 million children in child labour and warns that COVID-19 could cause a spike in such practices for the first time in 20 years, unless action is taken.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called on Guatemalan authorities to fully investigate the violent death of a transgender woman found dead at her home on Saturday in Guatemala City.  She had sought asylum in Guatemala after fleeing violence in El Salvador due to her gender identity.