Noon Briefings

In Burkina Faso, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator has allocated $5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to support the emergency response there. The funds will support 150,000 people in the Sahel, Centre-Nord and Est regions with life-saving assistance.

In Myanmar, the United Nations continues to follow closely the situation in Rakhine State, which is worsening the vulnerabilities of all communities in one of the country’s poorest regions.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that Uganda’s open-door policy for refugees is being strained by arrivals from Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Haiti, the United Nations and its partners continue to support people affected and displaced by the ongoing violence. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), through its mobile clinics, and its partners have supported more than 20,000 displaced people in Port-au-Prince since the end of February.

In Nigeria, the UN, its humanitarian assistance partners and the Government have launched a $306 million appeal to support 2.8 million people in the country’s north-east — comprising the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe — where some 4.8 million people are facing food insecurity, the highest level in seven years.

In South Sudan, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that more than an estimated 7 million people in the country are likely to experience high levels of food insecurity through July.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today released the third edition of its World Wildlife Crime Report, which says that wildlife trafficking has not been substantially reduced despite two decades of concerted action.

On Thursday, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem, while UNRWA and other UN agencies’ staff were on the compound. This is the second appalling incident against UNRWA in less than a week.

In Haiti, the UN and its aid partners are responding in the wake of recent attacks in the Port-au-Prince commune of Delmas, providing food, shelter and other supplies. This week, the World Food Programme distributed food to 264,000 schoolchildren and over 5,600 displaced people in the capital.

In Zambia, the UN and partners have launched an $228 million appeal to assist 4.6 million people this year after the Government there declared a national drought disaster at the end of February. The driest agricultural season in over 40 years has left over 9 million people, nearly half the population, food insecure.