Despite assurances from the Government of South Sudan, violence and governmental restrictions continued to prevent peacekeepers and humanitarian workers from fulfilling their respective mandates to protect civilians and deliver aid to those badly in need of it, the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council today.
Further clarification was needed on resource cuts and staffing changes proposed for special political missions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) heard today, as it took up the 2018 budget proposals for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Panel of Experts on Mali.
With violent extremists having suffered defeats in Syria and Iraq, the international community must step up cooperation to address the complex problem of foreign terrorist fighters returning home or travelling to other regions, the senior‑most United Nations official on that issue told the Security Council today.
Slavery and other grave human rights abuses affecting migrants and refugees travelling to North Africa and beyond constituted an abomination that could no longer be ignored, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told the Security Council today.
The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today approved 21 draft resolutions, including one stressing creditor and debtor nation responsibilities in avoiding the build-up of unsustainable debt to diminish the risk of crisis.
Pointing to signs of emerging common ground towards implementing the United Nations process for ending the conflict in Syria, the Secretary‑General’s Special Envoy for that country today called on the Security Council to support meaningful progress in the eighth round of talks, due to begin in Geneva on 28 November.
Victory over Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) had come at a very high cost, with thousands of fighters and civilians killed or wounded, hundreds of thousands of children brainwashed, entire cities in ruins, and some six million people displaced, the Secretary‑General’s Special Representative in Iraq said today, as he briefed the Security Council on the situation concerning that country.
As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today examined the recommended 2018 budgets for special political missions and the assistance mission in Iraq, one delegate objected to aspects of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide’s activities, while another was concerned by sharp increases in the number of staff at the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria.
The Security Council reiterated its condemnation of trafficking in human beings today, particularly the sale of people by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da’esh), as well as other violations and abuses by Boko Haram, Al‑Shabaab, the Lord’s Resistance Army and other such groups for the purpose of sexual slavery, sexual exploitation and forced labour.
The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) concluded its seventy‑second session today, approving five draft resolutions on the rights of children, assistance to refugees, persons with disabilities, social development and terrorism.
