Nigeria

Schools for more than 168 million children around the world have been closed for an entire year due to lockdowns, a report from UNICEF says, noting that around 214 million children globally, or one in seven, have missed more than three quarters of their in-person learning.  The most vulnerable may never return, it warns.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya today strongly encouraged the House of Representatives to consider the vote of confidence in the cabinet to be proposed by the Prime Minister-designate.  The Mission also said it is not in a position to comment on allegations of bribery during the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

United Nations Children’s Fund Representative (UNICEF) in Nigeria Peter Hawkins calls on those responsible for the mass abduction of girls from a State-run school in Zamfara to release them immediately and for the Government to take steps to ensure their safe release and the safety of other schoolchildren in the country.

In north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations vaccination teams are supporting the Ebola response by rehabilitating treatment centres and boosting contact-tracing capacity, and today began a four-day mission to Guinea to assess the situation in Nzérékoré, where the first Ebola case was reported.

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed’s message on the importance of domestic resource mobilization for the Sustainable Development Goals, at the opening of Nigeria’s tax dialogue, held today:

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

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports it is providing supplies such as mosquito nets, solar lamps, and blankets for 36,000 people in Somalia’s Puntland region who have been affected by Cyclone Gati, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the country, which made landfall in November.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayeh and Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Lucia Elmi launched a $417 million Humanitarian Response Plan to help 1.8 million people over the coming year. The latest assessment found that 2.45 million Palestinians - 47 per cent of the population - need aid.

Ethiopia is facing dire shortages of food, water, fuel, cash and electricity, as well as telecoms services in the Tigray region, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  More than 63,000 people are recorded as internally displaced in Tigray, including some who fled towards Afar and Amhara.