Middle East

The Food and Agriculture Organization appealed today for $120 million to reach 3.6 million people urgently requiring humanitarian and agricultural aid.  A new FAO report identifies the world’s most underfunded crises, including Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria — all hit by drought — monsoon‑affected Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, as well as Iraq, Myanmar and the Sahel.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over continuing arrests and apparently arbitrary detentions of human rights defenders and activists in Saudi Arabia.  Since 15 May, at least 15 Government critics have been detained, their whereabouts unknown, in some cases, amid a serious lack of transparency.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed deep alarm today at persistent reports of human rights violations and abuses in Cameroon’s English‑speaking north‑west and south‑west regions, as well as in the extreme north.  He said it is regrettable that the Government failed to grant the Human Rights Office access to the two regions despite repeated requests.

At the Global Disability Summit in London, the Deputy Secretary-General said that Governments’ commitments often does not translate into major improvements for the 1.5 billion persons with disabilities across the world, adding that the United Nations has launched a review of its approach, institutionally and operationally, to disabilities.

The outbreak of a new conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is “almost a certainty” unless the international community gets to work immediately to ease tensions on the ground, without losing sight of the broader aim of a sustainable peace, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees condemned the attack on its compound in South Sudan's north-western town of Bunj, in which two United Nations staff were injured when demonstrators forcefully entered the premises and looted offices and residences.  Peacekeepers were immediately deployed to re-establish order.

The top United Nations human rights official voiced acute concern today over developments in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, warning that any further violence risks inflaming the already fragile situation and may pose threats “across a far broader region”.

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

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says today that, three months after the violence started in Nicaragua, an estimated 280 people have died and 1,830 have been injured, in violence overwhelmingly perpetrated by the State and by pro-Government armed elements.  Those killed include at least 19 police officers.

The United Nations deployed needs assessments and inter‑agency convoys to areas in Syria that recently changed control.  Yesterday, a team from the Organization, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered food assistance to 15,000 people in Nassib and Um Elmayathen in Dara’a Governorate.