On 20 December 2018, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2374 (2017) concerning Mali approved the addition of the entries specified below to its Sanctions List of individuals subject to the travel ban set out in paragraphs 1 to 3 of Security Council resolution 2374 (2017) and renewed by paragraph 1 of resolution 2432 (2018) and adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

The WFP reached 5 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018, double the number reached last year.  WFP significantly expanded its operations there due to widening violence and displacement, poor harvest and endemic poverty, with scaled up interventions in Ituri, Tanganyika and North and South Kivu.

Providing his final briefing on the Syrian political process to the Security Council today, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General appealed to the Council to finally unite in efforts to end what he called the “dirty, brutal, horrific war”.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Maria-Francesca Spatolisano of Italy as Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Karen Smith of South Africa as his Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect.

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

The General Assembly endorsed the recently adopted Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration today, the first-ever international cooperation framework for effectively addressing issues that concern the world’s 258 million people on the move and countries of origin, transit and destination.

Once limited to transiting cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs to destinations abroad, West and Central African countries have now become both users and producers of those substances, the United Nations anti-crime chief told the Security Council today, noting that the region accounted for 87 per cent of all pharmaceutical opioids seizures identified in his office’s latest report.

In Afghanistan, humanitarian organizations in Herat City have started distributing food and non-food items to displaced people who have been affected by drought.  As part of the ongoing full-scale drought response, WFP and its partners reached nearly 287,000 affected people from 6 to 12 December with food and cash assistance.

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