Somalia

On International Women’s Day, peacekeeping colleagues report that Bangladesh, for the first time, is deploying four justice government-provided personnel, all women, to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), later this month.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

On 26 February 2021, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) concerning Somalia approved the addition of the entries specified below to its Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the measures imposed by Security Council resolution 1844 (2008) and adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

The Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992), concerning Somalia, held its first virtual meeting of 2021 with its Panel of Experts on 29 January to learn about its work programme for the year.

The Security Council, acting unanimously during a videoconference meeting today, adopted a technical rollover resolution reauthorizing deployment of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in its current form until 14 March 2021.

Somalia’s leaders must pull back from confrontation and avoid risky “winner‑take-all tactics” in efforts to break a sensitive political deadlock over the holding of elections, the top United Nations official in the East African country told the Security Council today during a videoconference meeting, as he urged stakeholders to reach an inclusive agreement, based on the electoral model agreed on 17 September 2020, as soon as possible.

Cabo Verde is among the first African countries to receive the first allocation of COVID-19 vaccines under the COVAX facility, the United Nations team there reports. In the next few weeks, thanks to additional World Bank funding of $5 million, Cabo Verde will be able to buy vaccines for almost 35 per cent of the population.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

Ten years into Syria’s crisis, humanitarian needs are deepening, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says, with an estimated 13.4 million people requiring protection and assistance, up more than 2 million people from 2020.  Nearly 60 per cent of the population is food insecure.

In north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations vaccination teams are supporting the Ebola response by rehabilitating treatment centres and boosting contact-tracing capacity, and today began a four-day mission to Guinea to assess the situation in Nzérékoré, where the first Ebola case was reported.