Polio immunization campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, months after COVID-19 left 50 million children without their polio vaccines, UNICEF said today. There is concern that up to 1 million children in Afghanistan could miss out as door-to-door vaccinations are not possible in some areas.
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Noon Briefings
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported today that its engineering troops, together with local youth, are repairing flood-damaged levees in Jonglei state, already saving Bor’s main market and hospital from being submerged by flooding, which has so far displaced an estimated 135,000 people in the area.
In Somalia, more than 150,000 people have fled their homes since late June — including 230,000 in the last week alone — due to flooding in the south. Some 650,000 people across the country having been displaced by heavy rains since January, with many now living in overcrowded, makeshift shelters. Food is in short supply and many are going hungry.
A flight carrying ventilators, protective masks and other essential medical supplies landed in Papua New Guinea today, marking the start of the World Food Programme’s humanitarian air service for the Pacific, which aims to help the region’s countries and territories bolster the Covid-19 pandemic response.
In Sudan’s Khartoum state — where food security has deteriorated due to inflation and economic decline — the World Food Programme (WFP) launched its first programme providing nutritional support to 175,000 pregnant and nursing women and children under five. Precautions are in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Adopted 21 years ago, the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour reached universal ratification, with Tonga depositing its instruments. The International Labour Organization estimates there are 152 million children in child labour and warns that COVID-19 could cause a spike in such practices for the first time in 20 years, unless action is taken.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called on Guatemalan authorities to fully investigate the violent death of a transgender woman found dead at her home on Saturday in Guatemala City. She had sought asylum in Guatemala after fleeing violence in El Salvador due to her gender identity.
In Zimbabwe, where 60 per cent of the population is projected to be food insecure by the end of 2020, the World Food Programme appealed for $250 million to prevent a human catastrophe. A nationwide COVID-19 lockdown has led to joblessness in urban areas, growing hunger in rural areas and hyperinflation that has made basic goods unaffordable.
The World Food Programme (WFP) today said swift action is needed to avoid severe food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, the world’s most coronavirus‑affected region that also faces a relentless rise of hunger, deepening inequality and an active hurricane season.
United Nations teams in Brazil, Colombia and Peru issued a joint statement calling for increased COVID-19 pandemic-related support and response efforts in the Amazon region. The pandemic is impacting hundreds of thousands of indigenous people, including 170,000 people living in remote areas along the Amazon River.