To end the worsening suffering in South Sudan, the international community must find a way to help its people bring about urgently needed peace, eliminate drivers of conflict and resume development, the Special Representative for the country told the Security Council this afternoon.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the high-level lunch on “Every woman, every child”, in New York today:

Concerned over outstanding balances owed to the United Nations and overdue payments to Member States for peacekeeping operations, delegates said the Organization had a “long way to go” before receiving a “clean bill of financial health”, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) heard today.

The Secretary-General spoke by phone today to Khaled Mahfoudh Abdullah Bahah, Vice-President and Prime Minister of Yemen, and stressed the need to fully operationalize the humanitarian pause that began yesterday in that country.  He said the whole United Nations humanitarian system has been mobilized to support the Yemeni people.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

In the face of “horrendous crimes” which continued to be perpetrated against civilians by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Sham (ISIL/ISIS), efforts to free Iraq from that common enemy must be rooted in bolstered unity and the acceleration of national reconciliation, top United Nations officials told the Security Council this morning.

A global arrangement on forests, bolstered by credible financing and means for monitoring and implementation, would help Governments and local communities  tackle the illegal timber trade and economic activities that were eroding one of the world’s most valuable resources, ministers in the Forum on Forests said today, as they debated how to revise the normative framework guiding such decisions. 

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, observed on 17 May:

The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attack today on a bus in Karachi, Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 45 members of the Ismaili community and injuring several others.  He calls on the Pakistani Government to take all necessary steps to bring to justice the perpetrators of this despicable act.

During its informal consultations on 8 May 2015, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2206 (2015) concerning South Sudan was briefed by Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.