Iraq

A joint study on food security released by the Government of South Sudan and humanitarian partners such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme, warns that the current harvest season will not end the hunger crisis in the country.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed Myanmar’s commitment to implement recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported slower rates of refugees entering Bangladesh.

The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, welcomed the full return of the Gaza crossings to the control of the Palestinian Authority.  He said the return was a landmark development in the implementation of the intra-Palestinian agreement, signed in Cairo on 12 October.

United Nations Secretary‑General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Alice Walpole of the United Kingdom as his new Deputy Special Representative for Political Affairs and Electoral Assistance of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned today that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a level not seen in 800,000 years, rising at record speed in 2016.  The WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reported that globally averaged carbon dioxide concentrations reached 403.3 parts per million in 2016, up from 400 parts per million in 2015 due to human activities and a strong El Niño.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the parties to the Syrian conflict to allow badly needed food and medical supplies to get into Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, where at least 350,000 civilians remain besieged.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that civilians continue to flee their homes in northern Iraq, with at least 166,000 people currently displaced, the majority from Kirkuk.  Aid workers are helping people in need where they have access, providing food, water, blankets and other supplies.

Humanitarian colleagues in Syria are deeply concerned about the situation for civilians in East Ghouta where children are reportedly suffering from severe acute malnutrition.  The last United Nations inter-agency convoy reached the besieged enclave on 23 September with assistance for 25,000 people.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is increasingly concerned by escalating displacement in several key regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 3.9 million people are internally displaced and the challenges of getting aid to people in need are growing fast.

It will take more than 100 years to end child marriage in West and Central Africa at current rates of reduction, UNICEF reported today.  The new projections, released during a high-level meeting on ending child marriage in Dakar, Senegal, this week, aim to bring the spotlight on the region where girls face the highest risk of marrying in childhood.