Peacekeeping

A United Nations report details today the worsening human rights situation in the Central African Republic in the past year, attributing responsibility for 54 per cent of the documented incidents to armed groups, and the remainder to national defence and security forces, bilateral personnel and private military contractors.

In Myanmar, at least 930 people, many of them women and children, have been killed at the hands of security forces since 1 February, while thousands more have been injured, the United Nations team there reports.  At least 3,000 remain under detention, as the protracted crisis impacts humanitarian access to people in need.

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) reports that yesterday, peacekeepers repelled two attacks against its patrols, the first in Kidal and the second north of Douentza, in the Mopti Region.  MINUSMA has seen 15 attacks against its peacekeepers in the past three weeks.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) for six months — until 31 January 2022 — expressing serious concern over violations of the military status quo along the ceasefire lines, reported encroachment by both sides into the buffer zone and increase in unauthorized construction — all of which pose challenges to the Force’s operations.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that half a million people in parts of Balochistan province in Pakistan are facing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity.  Another 100,000 people need immediate life-saving assistance due to severe drought-like conditions.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has launched a new Peace Fellows programme to increase participation in the country’s peace process.  It brings together representatives from all 10 states and three administrative areas to share information about the 2018 Peace Agreement, with a focus on education.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) cited a tight window for farmers in hunger-stricken northern Ethiopia to get crops in the ground ahead of upcoming seasonal rains.  It appealed for $30 million in urgent support, noting that farmers have seen seeds and animals looted and credit lines disappear.

Following the confirmation of a new Government and the enactment of its programme of action for 2021-2023, efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must now coalesce around ending an upsurge of fighting in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council today.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is warning today that, without urgent funding, the displacement crisis in the north of Mozambique could become a hunger emergency.  Displacement has left at least 730,000 people in Cabo Delgado without access to their land and no means of earning a living.

In Niger, 2.1 million children need humanitarian assistance, a third more than just a year ago, as the country continues to face conflict, displacement, food insecurity, floods and drought, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports.  The Agency is appealing for safe, sustained access to deliver aid.