Middle East

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary‑General António Guterres:

A new United Nations report has documented the immense suffering of civilians in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria region, where 900 people were abducted and 24,000 forced to flee their homes during a surge in violence between April and August of this year.

Gravely concerned over escalation of violence on the Gaza border and settlement activity in the West Bank, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today that the international community could no longer allow prospects for a two‑State solution to slip away.

Marking International Day of Rural Women, the Secretary-General said rural women and girls are crucial in building a prosperous, equitable and peaceful future.  He called on countries to take action to ensure that women and girls fully enjoy their human rights, including the rights of land and security of land tenure.

The UN refugee agency today drew attention to a collapsing health situation among refugees and asylum-seekers at off-shore facilities in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, calling on the Government of Australia to urgently act to prevent a further tragedy to people forcibly transferred under its off-shore processing policy.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reports that it has managed, for the first time since civil war broke out in South Sudan almost five years ago, to send a food-assistance boat convoy up the Sobat River, a tributary of the White Nile in the Upper Nile region, with enough food to sustain 40,000 people for one month.

The World Health Organization today launched its first global guidelines on sanitation and health, warning that the world will not achieve universal sanitation coverage by 2030 without comprehensive policy shifts and more investment.

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.

A new report released today says that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) mobilized $25 million to increase resilience and restore more than 800 buildings for the most vulnerable people in Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda, which were hit by two powerful back-to-back hurricanes a year ago.

The 2018 International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East concluded today with two panel discussions, one exploring media coverage of the Palestinian refugee story 70 years after the Nakba, and the other focused on the protection of journalists covering the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict.