Lebanon

In Ethiopia, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator has allocated $17 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to address worsening food insecurity in the country. The new funding reflects the Organization’s deep concern over the impact of a new El Niño-driven drought that is impacting Ethiopia.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report today on how attacks on Red Sea shipping are reshaping global trade routes. Higher fuel consumption from rerouted trade could result in a 70 per cent rise in greenhouse-gas emissions for these trips, and shipping costs have skyrocketed.

A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Save the Children and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that globally, 1.4 billion children from the day they are born to the age of 15 lack any form of social protection, leaving them vulnerable to disease, poor nutrition and poverty.

The Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, today echoed the concerns of other senior UN officials about the reported plans for a full military incursion in Rafah, stressing the risk it would create for the commission of atrocity crimes is serious, real and high.

On the borders along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, United Nations peacekeepers report that they continue to carry out their tasks, including patrols and other activities, amid daily exchanges of fire along the Line.

The 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan for Mali was launched Thursday in Bamako. The United Nations and its humanitarian partners will need over $700 million to assist more than 4.1 million people across the country this year to complement response activities implemented by national authorities.

The 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti released today seeks $674 million to help 3.6 million people across the country, where the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate.

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the press, in New York today:

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General informed that the first phase of the disengagement of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from South Kivu has begun, with a plan to complete its withdrawal from the area by June 2024.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) expressed today its deep concern over the recent arbitrary arrests and detentions of women and girls by the country’s de facto authorities because of their alleged non-compliance with the hijab decree.