The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on United Nations peacekeeping missions worldwide, but they are rising to the challenge in ways that align with their respective mandates and the unique situations that they each face on the ground, three Force Commanders said during a 4 June videoconference meeting of the Security Council.
In Bangladesh, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed today that a 71-year-old Rohingya man is the first refugee in the Cox’s Bazar camp to die from COVID-19 and some 30 other people have tested positive so far, yet the numbers are likely higher as testing is ramping up.
The Secretary-General welcomed the agreement between representatives of the Government of Venezuela and the Advisory Team of the National Assembly on responding to COVID-19. He encouraged parties to respect humanitarian principles in implementing the accord and to continue seeking common ground to overcome the protracted crisis.
The twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will now take place from 1-12 November 2021, in Glasgow. United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said that if done right, recovery from the COVID-19 crisis can foster a more inclusive climate path.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the Military Gender Advocate Award and Dag Hammarskjöld Medal Ceremony, in New York today:
The Security Council decided, in a 29 May videoconference meeting, to reauthorize the deployment of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) personnel for nine months, requiring them to support security in the lead-up to elections and to work towards the gradual hand-over of responsibility to Somali forces by 2021.
The Security Council in a 29 May videoconference meeting decided unanimously to maintain current troop and police ceilings of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) until 3 June.
Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day of Peacekeepers, observed on 29 May:
As Headquarters observes the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on Friday, 29 May, Secretary-General António Guterres will lay a wreath to honour all “Blue Helmets” who have lost their lives since 1948, and preside over a ceremony to award posthumously the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal to the 83 military, police and civilian peacekeepers who lost their lives in 2019.
More than one in six young people have stopped working since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said today. The latest ILO analysis of coronavirus’s impact on the labour market notes that those youth who remain employed have seen their working hours cut by 23 per cent.
