The Security Council expressed its outrage today over the fact that civilians continue to account for the vast majority of casualties in situations of armed conflict, and over its short- and long-term impact on them, from forced displacement to sexual and gender-based violence.
Against a “bleak” landscape in Yemen marred by a worsening humanitarian crisis, intensified fighting and attacks cutting off vital food and trade routes, the international community must take swift, concerted action to prevent a widespread famine, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs told the Security Council today.
Speakers in the Security Council today said a relatively stable security situation in Abyei makes it time to consider adjustments to the United Nations peacekeeping force there. Many stressed, however, that changes to its composition and mission must be preceded by thorough consultations with Khartoum and Juba.
Warning that current trends are jeopardizing the possibility of a two-State solution for Israelis and Palestinians, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today that the international community must step in to change this grave trajectory.
Cautiously welcoming a week-old peace deal ending the fighting in South Sudan, Security Council members raised a range of concerns about subsequent clashes and the protracted humanitarian crisis, as high-level officials updated on recent developments today.
Commencing the seventy-third session of the General Assembly today, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador), the organ’s fourth woman President in the Organization’s 73 years, said she is assuming her role with a “profound sense of responsibility” and a sense of urgency to go beyond a political agenda.
Syria, in its eighth year of war, must not miss an opportunity to create the constitutional committee, the top United Nations official tasked with seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis told the Security Council today, also welcoming the new Russian Turkish agreement to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib.
The intergovernmental conference drafting a legally binding treaty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea governing marine biodiversity in ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction concluded its first session today with its President stating that it is firmly on the path to achieving its mission.
Amid the recent rise in civilian casualties inside Afghanistan, decisions made now ahead of elections in October will have far‑reaching implications for the country’s future and play a key role in advancing the peace process, the senior United Nations official in that country told the Security Council today.
The representatives of the United States and the Russian Federation traded accusations today over the report of the Panel of Experts relating to the sanctions imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the Security Council met to consider non-proliferation.
